


Beyond the Sea

by skywardsmiles



Series: Beyond the Sea [2]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 62,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywardsmiles/pseuds/skywardsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marine Biology student Patrick Stump was looking to get away from everything when he signed up for an internship, but he didn't expect to get sent all the way to southern Ireland. He's been assigned to work with Pete Wentz and his whale watching tour business, and though he'd never admit it, the town and its crazy inhabitants may hold exactly what he's been searching for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Sea

_Patrick met Frank at a Young Communist Party meeting. He had actually been searching for the classics section of the library, but he’d found one of the meeting halls instead, and when every tense, narrowed eye turned toward him, Patrick sat down in the nearest chair._

_Frank, the boy next to him, leaned over to whisper, “You a freshman?”_

_He figured it was obvious. First day on a new campus, it had to be like in high school, when everyone knew the newbies apart with one glance. He’d had his hopes that college might be different, but Patrick was nothing if not a seasoned veteran of being let down. He nodded._

_“Me too,” the boy whispered back. “Are you here to mock, or do you harbor illusions that Stalin was his century’s greatest leader?”_

_Patrick blinked at him for a moment before looking frantically around the room, finally spotting the Young Communist signs. “I’m lost,” he sighed, and Frank nodded slowly._

_“Aren’t we all? Though not as much as them,” he said, giving a slight nod toward the two boys leading the meeting, dressed in camouflage shirts and neon sneakers._

_Patrick giggled, and the whole room turned toward him again, with Frank the only one smiling._

_\---_

_California had never been Patrick’s first choice. It was too hot, even compared to Chicago summers, and the people were all fake. No one smiled there, and any time he tried to make small talk with strangers on the street, they usually looked at him like he was going to break into their home later. But it had been the best option for studying marine biology, and Patrick liked being so close to the water. He had thought he could stick it out until he got his degree and a decent job, anywhere else._

_As far as plans went, it had all worked out pretty well._

_Until Frank._

_Frank made Patrick think he could stay in California forever, lounging on beaches and making out in places that meant sand got in areas it was never meant to go, getting coffee from local shops and sitting outside Starbucks, mocking its customers. It made him think that long nights spent talking about the future, about love and Chinese food and which movie to see next month and everything in between could continue on forever._

_And it had, for three good years, until the day Frank came home to Patrick and his leftover Chinese food and he looked so bored it hurt them both._

_“I met someone else,” Frank said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “He and I just have more in common.”_

_And then Patrick wanted to be anywhere else in the world but California, so he’d signed up for a year with a research internship program and figured he’d be transferred to Florida or Texas, or maybe if he was really lucky – Hawaii._

_Patrick hadn’t actually figured they’d send him all the way to Ireland._

\---

****

Autumn

The bus ambled down dirt roads, the sky getting darker overhead. It had only been an hour since they’d left Cork Airport, but Patrick could already feel his eyelids drooping.

The bus was mostly filled with locals who he could feel staring at him and his expensive headphones, so out of place in the middle of nowhere. He tugged the brim of his hat down lower out of habit.

“Union Hall,” the driver yelled as the bus came to a rickety stop. Patrick got up quickly, throwing his headphones into his backpack and making his way off the bus.

The sky was overcast outside, casting an eerie glow on the mostly empty road. There was a small line of shops off to one side, but the rest all looked like residences. Patrick fumbled with his bag out of the cargo space below the bus, the weight of it nearly sending him toppling to the ground. His mother had said he didn’t need to take his whole life with him, but Patrick couldn’t bear to leave his hats or his shoes alone in his bedroom for a whole year, gathering dust. They’d get lonely, he told her, and she’d simply sighed and kissed his forehead.

Once the bag was free and the cargo closed, the bus began its onward journey, stirring up dirt and loose gravel in its wake. Patrick was left standing alone on an empty street, wondering why he’d ever thought this might be better than California.

“Can I help you?”

Patrick turned around at the voice, surprised by a woman with pale features and curly blond hair leaning against the doorway to a small grocery store, eyeing him up and down.

He fumbled for the address in his pocket, dropping it twice before managing to read it off. “I’m looking for Ivy League B&B?”

The girl nodded slowly, motioning up one of the roads winding its way up a steep hill. “Ah, you’re one of Ryland and Alex’s. It’s about five miles up there, hard to miss.”

Patrick’s gaze flickered to his bag, still with its neon overweight sticker slapped on top, and felt his heart sink. He turned back to the girl. “Is there somewhere I could eat first?”

“It’s four,” she replied, and Patrick waited, but she seemed to be done.

“Um, does that… What does that mean?”

She smiled properly at him this time, motioning him closer. “It means everything’s closed until six because lunch is over. But come on, I think I can at least make you a sandwich.”

He sighed in relief and followed her into the shop, dragging his bag behind him until she stopped him with an easy hand on his shoulder. “No one’s going to steal it. Just leave it outside.”

“Oh.” Patrick hesitated before leaning it against the building, but he followed her in without argument. “I’m Patrick, by the way.”

“Greta,” she called from the back room and, unsure if he should follow her or not, Patrick sat on a stool by the front of the store instead. “What brings you to Union Hall, Patrick?”

“Um, I’m in an internship program,” Patrick called back before pausing. He hadn’t even spoken to the people he was going to work with, and most of what the agency had told him had been vague, with an added ‘you’ll see when you get there.’ Patrick barely even knew what he was meant to be doing. “I think I’m supposed to be working with some of the zoologists to track whale behavior patterns,” he said.

She nodded along thoughtfully. “That must be Pete and his crew. They take new students every once in awhile. Mostly they just give tours to children and tourists, though. I like the children. Less so the tourists.” She stepped fully out, producing a plate with several ham and cheese sandwiches and placed it in his lap. “Eat up, you look starved.”

And Patrick was. She let him eat in peace, only occasionally giving him some new piece of information about the town – hours the only two restaurants were open, what the best pub was (“Dirty’s is good for a match, but if you just want to drink, then Scimeca’s. Nick keeps mostly sober bartenders, so they’re never too drunk to pour a good drink”), and how there were surprisingly few Irish inhabitants in the town.

“There aren’t many of us in the town in general, really. But what there is, we’re mostly like you, from America. It’s just sort of worked out that way.” She gave him a soft smile and took the plate away, leaving Patrick to feel a little homesick for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on.

“You mentioned Pete and his crew,” Patrick said once she came back, wiping her hands on a dish towel. For such a small town, she was dressed rather elegantly – Patrick thought she looked like someone out of a 50’s pinup magazine, all perfect curves and curls, blue satin ribbon tied neatly around the waist of her dress. “What do you know about them?”

Greta shrugged, waving her hand. “About as much as anyone knows. They’re American too. Pete’s sort of hard to explain. His crew’s nice, though. Especially Joe.”

They talked for another half hour, before she began turning off lights and fiddling with a pair of keys in her hand. “Does everything close this early?” Patrick asked, surprised. He was used to big cities, with their 24 hour locations and bright, shiny lights in the night. And while he hadn’t expected quite the same here, he also hadn’t thought everything would be closed down by 5:30 in the afternoon.

“Everything but the pubs. The restaurants will be open for about three hours, too,” she said, reaching out a hand to help him to his feet. “Come on, I’ll drive you up the hill. You’ll never make it with that bag.”

Her car was small, just like she was, but Greta was surprisingly deft at lifting his bag into the trunk. The ride was short, but she fiddled with the radio and hummed in such a way that Patrick wondered if her singing voice was just as pretty. He really wanted to ask if there were any bands that stopped through the town because the idea of a year without any new music terrified him far more than the bright pink house at the top of the hill, the words IVY LEAGUE B&B sprawled across the sign in lazy, cursive lettering.

“You weren’t kidding when you said it was hard to miss,” Patrick mumbled when they were parked, and Greta began to laugh, shaking her head.

“They’re interesting. You’re in for a special treat with Alex’s cooking. Just don’t make them mad.”

“Are they mean?”

“They’re practical jokers and far, far too clever for their own good. Don’t ever tell them I said that, though.” She pulled Patrick’s bag out of her car with the same ease she’d put it in, and Patrick pretended he didn’t hear her giggling as he tried to drag it up toward the house, yanking and struggling with it. “Come visit!” she called once he’d made it to the porch, completely out of breath.

Before he could even knock, the door was opening and a cat shot out between Patrick’s legs. An exasperated looking man with shaggy hair and long, long limbs stood in front of Patrick, leaning past him to try and see where the cat was going. “Indiana Jones!” he shouted, but the cat didn’t answer. Patrick wasn’t certain if he expected him to or not. “Get back here now!”

Still, nothing. Patrick cleared his throat.

The man had to look down just to see him, but once he did, he brightened instantly, moving back to hold the door open. “Welcome to the Casa de Suarez y Blackington. Patrick, right?”

“Uh, yeah. How did you know my name?”

“We don’t get a lot of guests. Alex! Patrick’s here!” Ryland took Patrick’s bag, just as easily as Greta had, and Patrick seriously began to contemplate asking if there was a local gym or something, because really, he hadn’t thought he was that out of shape.

Another man, not quite as tall but with much better-kept hair appeared, kept grinning at him like they were old friends. “Patrick!”

All he really wanted to do was lie down, the full effect of the flight having finally hit him, but they insisted on showing him around the entire house. The kitchen was huge, with state of the art equipment and fresh fruit sitting in bowls lined along the counter, next to the most important part: a coffee machine. Patrick made tired, grabby hands at it, but he was quickly ushered away to the living room and shown a television that received only one channel, and even that was fuzzy at best.

The dining room was decorated all in hues of blue, “to match Ryland’s eyes,” Alex explained, which was around the time Patrick realized they were together together, and five seconds before he wondered how the pink house hadn’t tipped him off. He was really fucking tired, he decided.

Finally, there was a very brisk tour of the garden – “This is my garden, touch it and die,” Alex whispered into one ear, while Ryland whispered, “He’s serious,” into the other.

“Any questions?” Alex asked, taking Ryland’s hand and putting it in his back pocket. Patrick blinked at them for a few moments before stammering out, “W-where am I staying?”

“Oh!” Ryland exclaimed, pulling away from Alex who looked none too pleased, especially when he grabbed Patrick’s hand and began to pull him up the stairs. It took a great deal of effort to keep up with him since Patrick’s legs were half the size.

The room was decorated nicer than Patrick had expected. There were no flowery wallpaper or bed sheets, just a comfortable bed sitting in the corner near a window, with the curtain half closed. There was even a desk, perfect for his laptop and work, pressed against one of the walls. “We hope your stay here is pleasant,” Ryland spouted off, before giving him a mock-salute and running back down the stairs where Patrick swore he heard giggling, and something crashing to the ground.

Patrick plugged his laptop in to charge, had a shower that took him 15 minutes to figure out how to work and he couldn’t even blame it all on his exhaustion, and then curled up into bed.

\---

“That’s it,” Ryland said, slowing his rickety Jeep to a stop on a small dirt road. To their right was a castle, having long since been torn apart. But it stood tall in the weeds that lay below, and Patrick thought it was still impressive even missing chunks of stone here and there, and maybe just a bit sad. Ryland caught him looking, and motioned to the top of a hill behind the remains of the castle. “Travis lives up there and runs a museum. He carried a bunch of the old cannon balls from the fight up. He sells them, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

Patrick wasn’t.

To their left, when he finally drew his eyes away, was something far more interesting. Roaring Water Bay lay stretched out before them. The water lapped tiredly against the shore, just a slow steady motion.

There were a few tiny houses scattered in the distance on brief patches of land here and there, but mostly – ocean. Patrick climbed out of the car and wandered over the larger rocks to the beginning of where the water touched the land, dipping his fingers in to feel. It wasn’t as cold as he’d imagined for September, and it felt nice against his skin, refreshing. “I’ve never seen the Atlantic Ocean up close,” he called out to Ryland.

“That’s Pete,” he called back, motioning to a small two-engine catamaran winding its way into the shore toward a wooden dock. “Just call me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up. Pete has my number.”

Patrick held his backpack tighter and began to make his way onto the pier. The boat was slow moving now that it was so close to shore, and it took awhile to dock. Patrick grew bored after Ryland’s Jeep had long since disappeared into the distance, and sat on the pier instead, tossing pebbles at crabs and small fish he could see just below the surface.

He lost track of time staring at a duck, who quacked at him just like the ones at home. He was so distracted he failed to miss the boat docking, until someone shouted, “Tours don’t start until ten, you fucking idiot.”

Patrick blinked and looked up. There were two men, one eyeing him with curiosity, and the other with boredom. The first looked like he hadn’t shaved or washed his hair in days, and the second wore a bright blue beanie that read A WHALE OF A TIME and only partially masked his long, curly hair. Well.

“I’m Patrick?”

They continued to stare at him, their expressions unchanged.

He cleared his throat and stood up, dusting himself off. “From the internship program?”

“He’s the new Ryan and Spencer,” A Whale Of A Time Man said, but now it was Patrick’s turn to stare back blankly. Whatever it meant, Unshaved Guy seemed to brighten, jumping up onto the pier and holding out his hand.

It was a jerky handshake, Patrick still confused and nervous and Unshaved Guy too excited now. “I’m Pete! Your friendly neighborhood captain, and you, dear Patrick, you’re our new bitch. Welcome aboard the SS Voyager. This is my first mate, Joe.”

Joe nodded, too far away to shake his hand. “Naturalist, or business associate, not first mate. We aren’t pirates, Pete.”

“We could be!” Pete and Joe then seemed to engage in a fake swordfight, complete with battle noises and resulting in Pete gripping his chest and falling to his knees, nearly toppling over the pier.

“I owned your ass,” Joe announced proudly before disappearing into the boat.

Pete bounced back up, motioning for Patrick to board the small ship. “We have just a few ground rules. One, if anyone falls over, don’t jump in after them. That’s stupid. Just stand and point at where they fell, maybe tell us. Or you could just point, up to you.”

Pete led him off the deck and into the interior of the wheelhouse where there were two small benches, a billboard with various photos of whales and dolphins underneath a sign reading Employee Of The Month, and the wheel. Joe was already sitting on one of the benches, flipping through a magazine.

“Two, you’re going to have to wear a life vest until we can trust you.” Pete produced a neon pink monstrosity, and then proceeded to show Patrick how to inflate it.

“They’re going to be able to see me in the next county,” Patrick sighed, looking down at it. He’d worn plenty of life vests in his time, but usually they didn’t leave him feeling like some reject version of Beach Barbie.

“That’s the general idea,” Joe said, not looking up from his magazine.

“And finally, if I fall over and die or something, kick Joe. If he falls over and dies too, use this button to radio in for help.” He tapped a large red button on the ceiling, smiling too wide still. “Got it?”

“Um.” Patrick rubbed at the back of his neck, not certain what there really was to get. “Yeah?”

“They always send us the smart ones,” Joe said, sounding entirely serious, and Patrick began to wonder if he’d thoroughly pissed off the lady at the internship application office.

\---

Normal people would have been thrilled at the idea to go to Ireland, his mother, counselor, friends, everyone he’d ever met, had all told him. But that wasn’t how Patrick saw it.

For all that he liked his alone time, when he was forced to socialize Patrick liked crowds. He liked that feeling of being able to get lost in a sea of people and not standing out, he liked big cities with their music stores and local bands playing in dive bars on Tuesday nights. He liked having internet access, and he even liked studying the ocean and its creatures from a safe distance. He didn’t like towns where the population was less than 200 and the closest thing to a music store was the harmonica section he’d seen in Greta’s store and hadn’t dared to ask about.

But some two miles from Union Hall, Pete slowed the catamaran to a stop and pulled out his binoculars, scanning the water for something he’d seen. Joe had given up the magazine and stood outside on the deck, leaning against the railing and watching the water splash against the boat, sea foam white and green and brown like an abstract painting. Patrick had joined him, though they weren’t talking – but he looked up as Pete stepped out onto the deck, binoculars pressed to his eyes.

And there, some 20 feet away, a Common Dolphin jumped out of the water and Patrick began to rethink studying anything from a safe distance.

Pete turned to grin at him, binoculars lowered now. “And this is a _job_ ,” he whispered, sounding amazed. His gaze flickered past Patrick to Joe, where his eyes softened and they seemed to share some quiet moment, but then the dolphin was swimming back deeper under the water, and the boat was moving on to clearer waters.

\---

After a quick tour around the area and its surrounding islands, complete with scattered bits of history, Joe explained that they were hired out by several environmental groups to research a variety of factors in the area – everything from animal behavior to water quality measurements. “They like us,” Joe said, shrugging. “We’re here because we love the animals, and if you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t that many people around here in general. But they don’t pay us much, so we give tours to people. Promote that whole save the planet message, too.”

“That’s Sherkin Island,” Pete yelled over the noise of the motor, and Patrick redirected his attention. “There’s about 300 people living there now, but most of them will disappear in about a month. Fuck off back to their non-summer homes. But Spencer and Ryan are there.”

Patrick stepped in to the wheelhouse where he could hear Pete better. “Who?”

“Oh, they’re students like you. They got here in May.”

“Why aren’t they on the mainland?”

Joe cracked a smile. “Their choice. We let them monitor the surfacing patterns without the boats around from up there, they have telescopes.”

“They were always getting seasick,” Pete added, cackling a little at the thought. “It was kind of funny.”

“You didn’t have to clean it up,” Joe grumbled, kicking at Pete’s shin. “Besides, they’re better at paperwork.”

“So they just sit on an island?” 

Pete shrugged. “We check on them sometimes.”

Patrick glanced out at the open water and tried to imagine how anyone would choose being cooped up on an island over this. Some pretty black and white bird that looked like a cross between a duck and a puffin watched them from its perch on a rock near one of the islands, obviously used to their presence. “That seems… sad.”

“Just because it’s not your choice doesn’t mean it’s sad,” Pete snapped back, but then cleared his throat, smiling quickly at Patrick. “We should be getting back. Tour will be starting soon.”

\---

The rest of the day was a blur, with one morning tour, a few collected samples of water at various locations, and an even longer afternoon tour. There weren’t many people on each outing, only between five and ten, but it was more than Patrick had expected. He mostly gazed out at the water with the tourists, listening to Pete and Joe talk animatedly about the history of the islands and occasionally stopping to point out local wildlife. Joe had shoved a camera and a pen and paper at Patrick, telling him to keep notes.

They’d spotted more dolphins on the second tour, and Pete had grabbed at Patrick’s hand as he leaned out over the boat to get a better look, Joe standing nearby letting a small girl use their pair of binoculars. His hand felt warm even in the cool September air, and it gripped Patrick’s tightly, almost familiar. No one had held his hand like that in awhile, but Patrick shook the thoughts from his head, remembering the way Pete had sat down in the lap of one of the ladies on board earlier. He was just friendly.

“Do you see it?” Pete asked, not lifting his gaze from where a pod of dolphins was dancing in the water, close enough to the surface that their outlines were visible.

“Sort of hard to miss,” Patrick said, but he was possibly leaning out even further than Pete was.

The girl with Joe was making excited noises, bouncing up and down by the railing to try and get a better look. Pete finally tore his gaze from the water to laugh at her, releasing Patrick’s hand to pick her up. “Dolphin!” she said excitedly as one broke the surface again.

“That’s a Bottlenose Dolphin,” Patrick said, and the girl repeated the word back, giggling. “They talk just like we do, only they use a different system. Can you whistle?” Patrick whistled once to show her, but she shook her head slowly. He paused and clicked his teeth together instead, still smiling. “How about that?” She repeated the action, watching him with curious eyes.

Patrick motioned back out to the water. “To them, that might be hello.”

Her eyes grew wider in excitement and she squirmed out of Pete’s arms to go off and show Joe her new trick of speaking with the dolphins, even after they had disappeared into the distance, the water calming in their wake. Pete leaned closer to him, their shoulders just barely touching. “I bet,” Pete said slowly, “by the spring, I can just sleep in and blow off work and let you run these tours. ”

“I’m here to learn,” Patrick reminded him, elbowing his side lightly. “Besides, who would drive the boat?”

Pete scratched at his chin, seeming to consider. He stood there until Joe whistled loudly at them, and when Pete glanced back, he was tapping at a bright red watch on his wrist.

“We’re not on a time frame, Trohman!” he called back, but Pete turned and stepped back into the wheelhouse anyway, leaving Patrick alone on the deck.

When they got back to the pier, the sun was starting to go down on the horizon. Joe waved the customers off and collected their money while Pete began to wipe down the boat, tossing a rag to Patrick. “We’re not paying you to sit around on a boat all day.”

Patrick quirked a brow. “You’re not paying me at all.”

“Same difference,” Joe said, hopping back on board.

Pete drove the boat away from the shore, and Patrick assumed they were going back out for more data, but he only moved it to the middle of the bay area, dropping an anchor overboard and turning off the engine. Patrick leaned over the side to look down at the water, some ten feet deep even this close to the shore.

“Um,” Patrick said, dumbly.

Pete gathered up the water samples they’d taken earlier and threw them into his own backpack, while Joe began to climb over the other side of the boat, down a small set of stairs.

“Um,” Patrick said again.

“Come on,” Pete sighed, exasperated, and grabbed for his hand again. He led him to the other side of the deck, and there at the bottom of the set of steps was a canoe Patrick hadn’t noticed earlier. He couldn’t tell if it was a better or worse option than swimming the thirty feet back to the shore.

“That won’t hold us,” he argued, but Pete ignored him, already halfway down the steps.

Patrick continued to stare down at them, long after Joe and Pete were already situated, leaving a spot in the middle for him. “It won’t sink,” Pete called, staring up at him.

“Yeah!” Joe agreed, motioning him to hurry. “It only did that once. Well, maybe twice.”  
Patrick highly doubted them both, but he squeezed his eyes closed and climbed down into the small canoe with them, having to sit with his knees pulled up and pressed into Pete’s back, Joe’s knees digging into his own back.

“See, we’re fine,” Pete said proudly, and Patrick pretended not to notice the way some water seeped in, or how patches of his jeans were wet when they docked at the shore.

\---

Pete parked his truck in front of their small home and he and Joe clambered out, heading inside to change clothes and feed Hemmy, who nosed at their shoes and whined until Pete leaned down to scratch at his belly and murmur a few whispered apologies about taking so long. Once that was done, they headed back out with more apologies to Hemmy, who just laid down and sighed like he hadn’t expected anything less from them.

The sun was fully down, but a few far-spread lampposts and the moon overhead illuminated the road enough that they could see their breath hang in the air, even in mid-September. They didn’t need light, though – they’d walked this road so many times they could have done it with their eyes closed.

Joe tugged at the material of his pea coat as if he could force it to give him extra warmth, and even though they both knew it would have been warmer to stick cold fingers into pockets, their hands found each other in the dark, familiar comfort on a cold night.

“You like him,” Joe said after a few minutes, the lights of the pub still far enough away that they had time for a conversation.

Pete shrugged, glancing sideways at him. Joe knew that look – he was calculating, seeing what question Joe was really asking. “You like Greta!” he said suddenly, laughing. When Joe didn’t smile, Pete sobered, leaning closer. “What if I do?”

There was nothing to do but shrug, because it wasn’t as if Joe hadn’t already realized out on the boat. “Nothing.”

“Hey,” Pete whispered, giving Joe’s hand a light tug to stop him. He pressed closer once Joe was still, sliding a hand inside Joe’s coat to press against the soft cotton of his shirt, and Joe gasped at the sensation of cold fingers that much closer to his skin. “It doesn’t matter. I’m taken.”

“Hasn’t stopped either of us before,” Joe reminded him, and sometimes that hurt. Sometimes, usually, it made things easier and lighter between them.

“And we always wind up back here. I like _you_ ,” Pete said, pressing soft lips against his until Joe was pliant in his arms, easily forgiving even if he knew how this story was going to end. When they parted, they were both out of breath with swollen lips and hands tucked under layers of clothing, but Pete flashed him a smile and pressed their foreheads together. “Drink first,” he murmured, untangling them both to take Joe’s hand again, giving it another tug.

“Drink first,” Joe agreed, falling into step beside him.

\---

Spencer always got bored at this part, but it was Ryan’s favorite – even if he didn’t like to admit it. With telescopes and binoculars, they had a pretty good view of the next island over where the harem of Harbour Seals had taken up residence. Their job was basically to count how many there were at various times of the day, which was horrible for two reasons. First, Spencer was never very good at math, so trying to count living, breathing groups of animals (even if they were too lazy to move much) was a pain. And second, it seemed morbid, counting to see if any of them were missing, possibly dead. Spencer hated this part.

\---

Ryan loved the seals more than the whales or the dolphins. They seemed more approachable, and even if they were a bit lazy, Ryan knew better. Besides, they were adorable, though he wished they were studying the Grey Seals now. Then there’d be pups everywhere, but he’d have to wait until summer for these girls to give birth.

He loved the way the seals lounged on rocks in the sun, occasionally sliding off into the water for elaborate dances and rituals he could only catch partial glimpses of. Ryan could have easily spent all day staring at them – and once or twice, had even wandered over to other islands where there were pods of seals he wasn’t having to study impartially, and he could sit and watch them staring back at him with their amused curiosity, sometimes playing hide-and-seek in the water with him until they grew bored.

“Ryan!” someone called out behind him, and one of the seals across the way barked, as though answering the call.

“Brendon,” Spencer breathed beside Ryan, narrowing his eyes but not moving them from the data sheet in front of him where he was scribbling down numbers, keeping track.

And really, there was no one else it could be. Spencer and Ryan hadn’t made many friends on the island, though they’d never really expected to. They weren’t the summer home kind of people, even if they’d arrived at the same time as the flock of people there to soak up the sun, tour the countryside in their hired cars and take boats out on the water as if it was their own private pool.

A lot of artists came to the island as well in the summer, hoping to tempt the tourists with their pretty oil paintings of the island or photographs of waves crashing upon pebbly shores.

Usually, it worked.

In fact, the only artist on the island who never seemed to sell much of anything was Brendon Urie, with his slightly-misshapen pottery. “I’m getting better,” he’d argued every time Spencer told him it was no wonder he was poor, but no matter how many times they narrowed their eyes at him in those first two months, he’d kept coming back. 

Eventually, they’d stopped bothering to pretend they didn’t kind of like him too. Now, they were used to him. Ryan maybe even thought of him as his only other friend.

“Ryan!” he called again, plopping himself down in the grass between Spencer and Ryan, wrapping an arm around both of them. “Did you hear?”

“You just made me lose count,” Spencer sighed, rubbing at his forehead and lowering the binoculars as he began to jot down notes furiously, muttering to himself.

Brendon was mostly un-phased. “You’re going to love me one day,” he told Spencer proudly, before beaming at Ryan. “You too.”

“Were you dropped on your head as a child?” Ryan asked, but Brendon just laughed against his ear, suddenly close enough to lean his head on Ryan’s shoulder.

“You should come into town with me tomorrow. I need new supplies, and Greta rang the gallery to say she got it in for me.”

“It’s not Monday,” Spencer said, as though that were reason enough, and Brendon looked hurt for a moment – he was never invited into town with them on Monday nights, their one reprieve from island life, but that was mostly because Pete didn’t know Brendon, and it was Pete’s boat.

“Maybe you can come with us instead on Monday,” Ryan said, and he got two very different reactions.

Suddenly, there was a very pleased Brendon on him, arms thrown around him. “Really? I can come?” Ryan patted his back awkwardly, aware of Spencer’s eyes on him, annoyed.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, when Brendon finally started to pull back. “And we can bring Jon too. I bet he needs more film.”

Spencer’s expression changed significantly, but Brendon’s didn’t in the slightest.

\---

“Monday night,” Pete announced before they’d had enough of their coffee, “is Date Night, Patrick.”

Patrick looked at Joe, who was usually his last resort for interpreting Pete-speak, but Joe just nodded his head and took a large gulp of his coffee. He sighed. So much for pulling out the big guns.

“What do you mean, it’s date night?” Patrick asked slowly. “Does the whole town go on some weird version of double dating? Because that’s not really my thing.” He’d only been there a week and a half, and usually by the time Ryland came to pick him up it was all he could do not to fall asleep in the car, let alone go out and meet someone for a date. It felt stupid to bring up that any sort of night involving another person who wasn’t Alex, Ryland or Indiana Jones curled up against him seemed pretty out of the question.

Pete laughed outright, shaking his head. “Every Monday-”

“Every other,” Joe shot back, quirking a brow and trying to look stern. On him, it mostly looked like he’d eaten something sour.

Pete waved his hand, nodding. “Yes, well, okay. So every _other_ other Monday Joe and I spend Date Night in the city.”

“The real city,” Joe added, back to smiling now. “Not Scimeca’s. For real dates.”

Patrick had known that one. It had only taken a few days on the boat to realize Pete and Joe were very much together, and more than once he’d seen more than he really wanted to.

“Anyway!” Pete made threatening motions to Joe’s cup of coffee, causing him to clutch it tighter and recoil, also shutting him up. “Anyway, every other Monday is Date Night. We go pick up Ryan and Spencer, we all go out for drinks and talk about stuff that isn’t the ocean.”

“It never works out like that,” Joe said, shaking his head slowly. Pete lunged, but Joe sidestepped him, taking a long, leisurely sip as Pete crashed into the wall instead.

Brushing himself off, Pete cleared his throat. “So you in?”

\---

As it turned out, there wasn’t much choice in the matter.

After they finished the last tour of the day on Monday, instead of docking the boat by the canoe, Pete tuned back toward the bay and began to head toward some of the islands.

Patrick still got a lot of their names mixed up – Horse Island didn’t look like a horse and Flea Island didn’t like a flea, they just all looked like bunches of rocks and grass – but he could at least tell Sherkin apart from its sheer size and the actual buildings. So when they pulled into the pier there and Patrick could see four people waiting, he assumed two were the famed Ryan and Spencer.

Joe bounced on the heels of his feet beside him, waving to the group. Two raised a hand in greeting, one waved back enthusiastically, and one crossed his arms and sulked. Well, at least he knew which one was Spencer.

“Jon’s coming?” Joe called out to Pete.

“Yeah. Some other one too. Brandon? Fuck if I know. Ryan insisted.”

Joe smiled again at the group as the boat came to a stuttering stop. Patrick stood there feeling awkward as the four boarded the boat, Joe grabbing their arms to steady them once they jumped down.

Joe hugged two of the Not Spencers, while the real Spencer crossed his arms again. The last one beamed at Patrick, pulling him into a hug. “I’m Brendon,” he announced, shaking Patrick’s hand when they parted, which seemed backwards, but Patrick instantly liked him.

“Patrick,” he answered, and one of the Not Spencers looked over at him when he spoke, as though only now alerted to his presence.

“You’re Patrick?” he asked, running his eyes over him. “Where are you from?”

“Um.” Patrick cleared his throat, but then did his best to smile, even as he felt awkward again. Brendon smiled encouragingly at him. “Chicago, but I’m going to school in San Diego. Well, I was. I mean, until I got here.”

Not Spencer looked him over again, then nodded his head in approval. “Vegas,” he said, and even though Patrick had figured it out by now, he added, “I’m Ryan.” Patrick held out his hand for a handshake, but Ryan stared back at him as though confused, while Spencer snorted in his corner.

“Play nice, children,” Pete said, appearing on the deck. He grinned and pulled Ryan into a hug. Ryan squirmed against him a little at the sudden movement, but he patted Pete’s back awkwardly and finally Pete pulled away. “How the hell are you, Walker? And when are you going to grace the Voyager again with your presence?”

“I’m on your boat right now,” Jon said, no irony in his voice. He was even smiling, and when Spencer snorted again in his corner, Patrick saw him turn that smile on Spencer. However, he didn’t seem to want anything to do with Jon as he turned away quickly to look at the water as though he could see anything other than inky darkness.

Pete laughed and shrugged, stepping back to the helm. “Yeah, alright. So let’s go party!”

\---

For all he’d been hearing about Scimeca’s, nothing that had been built up in his head really matched the immaculately decorated modern bar. It looked nothing like what he’d imagined any Irish pub would, and Patrick was almost disappointed by its slick booths and shiny metal bar. There was a small stage at one end where a karaoke machine was currently set up, and where some tall man was singing a Cure song on stage and, surprisingly, not butchering it.

“That’s William,” Pete whispered in his ear, suddenly beside him. Patrick blinked. He could have sworn Brendon was there just a minute ago. “He co-owns the place with Nick, but likes to let Nick do most of the work.”

“I don’t know who Nick is,” Patrick laughed, and Pete broke out into a full smile.

They joined the table with the others, where Spencer had forcefully managed to get Ryan between himself and Jon, and Brendon had been left sitting on the end by Jon, looking disheartened. Joe (who beyond Ryan, seemed to be the only one Spencer didn’t shoot death stares to) waved at them and tugged Pete in beside him, curling up against him. There was a gnawing feeling in the pit of Patrick’s stomach as he watched them, but he shook his head, trying to wipe it out.

It was just nerves at social situations, he told himself. Even back in California, Patrick had always been reluctant to go out anywhere. He preferred his own home to noisy clubs and bars, which had been part of the reason Frank had finally gotten fed up and left him. That hadn’t made dealing with the social situations any better.

Their drink order was of nothing Patrick had ever heard of (what the hell _was_ an Adios Motherfucker, anyway? “He just likes the name,” Ryan snorted, and Pete nodded like that should have been obvious). Mixon, their bartender, didn’t seem surprised, and what he brought back were bright, colorful concoctions that Patrick stared at. They all seemed so much more tempting than his own beer.

Pete must have read his mind, because he held up his own bright blue drink, straw aimed at Patrick like a weapon. “Want some?”

He hesitated, but took a sip.

“This is what I think the mermaids from Mermaid Lagoon would drink, if they were real,” Pete was saying, taking another sip once Patrick was done. He licked his lips, which Patrick totally didn’t stare at, and grinned. “Awesome, isn’t it?”

“It’s good,” Patrick agreed and Pete beamed at him.

Some two rounds later, Ryan began to laugh at something Spencer whispered into his ear, and he pressed his forehead against his friend’s, sharing a secret, private smile.

“Anyone want to do karaoke?” Brendon asked suddenly and the table fell quiet. Brendon ran a hand through his hair, nervous. “Or, nevermind.”

“Jon can sing,” Spencer said suddenly, then hid his face behind his drink.

Jon laughed. “Not as well as you think. And that’s been awhile. Sorry, Bren. Maybe next time?”

Brendon nodded and stared down at the table where his now-empty glass sat. Spencer elbowed Ryan, who stiffened, but stayed quiet.

“You can go if you want though,” Jon suggested to Brendon when the silence stretched on.

“I really don’t want to go alone,” Brendon said, then shrugged. “It’s fine. Next time, like Jon said.”

“I’ll go,” Pete volunteered, but the entire table broke out into groans.

“Please don’t,” Joe begged, shaking at his arm. “Or I will steal your drinks the rest of the night. I mean it.”

Brendon was bright red by this point, and Patrick was just drunk enough on his beers and whatever drinks Pete kept sliding his way to say, “I’ll go with you.”

The resulting smile was totally worth it, at least until they got up on the stage and Patrick felt sick to his stomach. He hadn’t sung publically in months, and even then, it was usually more of a joke. “I don’t feel good,” he whispered to Brendon, who just patted his head once and then began skimming through the book of songs, chewing on his lower lip. He was bouncing again, making Patrick dizzy.

“A Whole New World?” Brendon asked, but Patrick cringed.

“No Disney,” he said and Brendon’s face fell. Well, Patrick had already agreed to do this. It didn’t mean he had to make a complete fool out of himself.

“How about Avril Lavigne?” he tried again, still skimming. “Or Material Girl. Or Eye of the Tiger.”

Patrick rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. This had been such a bad, bad idea. “Give me the book,” he sighed.

They finally settled on Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, which was cheesy enough to satisfy Brendon’s taste and not as embarrassing as everything else he’d picked to satisfy Patrick’s.

When they stepped up to the microphone after a rather bad rendition of Margaritaville, Patrick could feel his hands shaking at his side. Their table began to cheer, even if it was mostly just Pete standing on the booth and whistling loudly while Ryan laughed into his glass and Joe pulled at Pete’s leg, banging his free hand on the table in support. He hated them all.

Brendon smiled at him from his own microphone as the music started up, and if Patrick squeezed his eyes closed and pretended he didn’t feel dizzy, he found he could focus on the song.

Brendon’s voice was good, and once Patrick’s own evened out from nerves, they made a good harmony. In the end, it didn’t suck completely. But Patrick still felt like throwing up.

They hurried back to their table while Greta got up to sing something, her voice floating through the air and Patrick was right. Her voice was just as pretty as he’d imagined. He swore he caught her smiling at Joe once, who blushed and turned away, but his thoughts were more preoccupied by the way everyone at the table was staring at him and Brendon.

“What?” Brendon finally asked, twitching nervously beside Jon. Pete was particularly close to Patrick now, still staring.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Spencer sighed, downing the last of his drink. “You were good. Okay?”

“How do you sing like that?” Pete asked suddenly, eyes wide. Patrick frowned.

“It’s just singing.”

“It’s way more than that,” Pete argued, and Patrick just shrugged helplessly and ordered another drink. If he thought he caught Pete staring a few more times later in the night, well, that was just the alcohol.

Things returned to mostly normal after that. Talk turned to work, as Joe had predicted, and Patrick found himself telling them stories of knowing he wanted to save the whales after visiting SeaWorld. At the time, that had meant saving them from amusement parks and scheduled shows for wide-eyed kids, but it had expanded as he got older and learned more.

Ryan had a similar story, to his surprise, after spending a summer working at a marina. “The fish were the only things I liked,” he admitted.

More drinks were poured, and by the end of the night, Patrick had to excuse himself to get some fresh air and sober up.

He stood up on shaky feet, the effects of that last orange-flavored thing Pete had handed him working their way through his system now, and Brendon got up to join him. “So you don’t fall down,” he explained, and helped Patrick outside.

“Thanks,” Brendon said once they were outside, leaning against the side of the bar. There were no cars to watch buzzing by like there would have been back home, but the sounds of crickets and other animals moving nearby meant it wasn’t completely silent.

“For what?” Patrick frowned at him.

Brendon shrugged and bounced on his toes again, nervous. “For, you know, getting up there with me. They wouldn’t have.”

“You’re nice,” Patrick said, humming to himself and looking up at the sky. The moon was out, and he liked that. It seemed brighter here.

Brendon laughed, but it still sounded strained and nervous. “Thanks anyway,” he said again, and Patrick shrugged because there wasn’t much else to say. Brendon seemed to agree, as he leaned over and before Patrick realized what was happening, there were soft lips pressed against his, testing.

Patrick pulled back a little, surprised. “What are you doing?”

“Um,” he hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Just, I wanted to. I don’t usually do stuff like that. Really. I don’t go around kissing guys I just met. Though if I did, I probably wouldn’t tell you. But I don’t. I don’t really kiss anyone I want. But you don’t either, do you? Because they don’t like us. Me. Um, yeah.”

He was talking a lot but none of it seemed to match up in Patrick’s head, which was still a few seconds delayed. This was why he never drank, he reminded himself. He missed all the important details. “I haven’t kissed anyone since my ex,” Patrick admitted though he didn’t know where the thought came from.

Brendon stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “I haven’t kissed anyone in two years. I kind of forget what it’s like sometimes.”

Patrick tilted his head to the side, considering. “One kiss won’t hurt,” he decided.

When they got back to the table, they’d done their best to straighten clothes and hair. Patrick even thought they’d done a pretty good job, but Pete stared at him for a moment too long and Patrick knew they hadn’t done as good of a job as they’d hoped.

Across the table, Ryan and Spencer were staring too.

\---

Jon wasn’t sure if he liked Date Night. Pete and Joe, who he genuinely liked because of their fun attitudes, their ability to keep up with him drink for drink, and their taste in movies, weren’t bad hosts or anything. It was just, if you got a group of people together as explosive as them, you expected fireworks. Not the awkward silence of the last quarter of the night, when they’d all suddenly felt far too sober and too tired to work at getting their buzzes back.

The worst part had been the trip back. They dropped Patrick off at his B&B before heading to the pier, Ryan and Spencer glaring at his back as he walked away. Brendon was uncharacteristically quiet, even when they got to the boat. They all were. The only sounds that could be heard were Joe and Pete’s quiet chatter inside the boat, and the water lapping against the side as it coasted back toward the island. Occasionally, a humpback whale sang out, but it sounded sad and lonely tonight, no one there to answer its call.

He could see Spencer talking to Ryan at the opposite end of the boat from where Brendon was, but Ryan pushed him away and Spencer sighed, moving to the middle. Jon approached him, smiling cautiously.

“Fun night, huh?”

Spencer glanced up at him, but his gaze quickly skirted back to the ocean. “I think you need a dictionary, Walker.”

Jon laughed, leaning against the railing and matching Spencer’s pose. “I need a lot of things. A dictionary isn’t one of them.”

This time, there was an actual smile playing at Spencer’s lips. “Is another drink one of them?”

“Might be,” Jon nodded, scratching at his chin. “I never got that film I was promised.”

Spencer winced. “I’m sorry, I’ll go back on the ferry tomorrow and get it from Greta.”

It was Jon’s turn to smile, bumping their shoulders. Spencer looked startled, but he relaxed. “Nah, I can go myself. I’m not totally useless. I didn’t need it that bad anyway. Just thought a night out sounded fun.”

“Little did you know,” Spencer mumbled, and Jon laughed quietly beside him.

“Is he okay?” Jon asked, motioning toward the corner of the boat where Ryan was standing alone.

Spencer’s face fell and he shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know about him either.” In the other corner, Brendon was sitting on the deck, his face pressed against the cool railing and watching the water whip up against the boat.

“It’s okay,” Jon said, knocking their feet together this time instead of their shoulders.

It felt nice, standing this close to Spencer. He’d missed this. It was a small island so they ran into each other often, but for a few weeks before the seals had switched favorite rocks and forced Spencer’s schedule to change, they’d met up every day in the back of the gallery for the only espresso machine located on the island. It wasn’t Starbucks, but it would do.

Jon had always worked his schedule around when Spencer would be there, and he didn’t know if Spencer had done the same, but he’d hoped. He never got the chance to ask, because then Spencer was working during all of Jon’s gallery hours.

The boat docked, and Joe gave him a final hug goodbye, looking just as tired and worn down as the rest of them felt. Jon got off first, helping the others onto the pier, and they stood awkwardly as the boat began its lazy descent back to town.

Brendon started to slink off back toward his little shack, Ryan staring hard at his back.

“I was wondering,” Jon said quietly, just loud enough for Spencer to hear, “if you wanted to come and get coffee with me. I have the keys to the gallery.”

To their left, Brendon turned around and walked back to Ryan, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry,” he said, shoving his hands into his pocket. “What did I do?”

Ryan’s voice rang out in the night, clear and sharp. “I hate you,” he hissed.

Brendon ducked his head to stare at the ground, nodded once, and then began to walk again.

Spencer closed his eyes, motioning sadly to Ryan. “I… have to go, Jon.” He hurried after Ryan, who was already stalking up the hill toward their cottage.

Jon drank the coffee by himself, and didn’t sleep at all for it.

\---

Patrick skipped the next two Date Nights, and carefully avoided Sherkin anytime he could help it. It only took four days for Pete and Joe to start acting normally around him again, but even then they seemed a little more careful. But any and all conversations of the island were reduced mostly to history lessons during the tours.

Instead, they formed their own tradition. Sundays, in the morning when most of the tourists were in church, Patrick walked down the hill to their house where he was usually greeted with Hemmingway’s gruff bark and the smell of breakfast wafting out from the window. Joe, he learned, was not very good at much else but breakfast foods, but he was fantastic at that.

“I’m not good at any food,” Pete laughed, passing out plates to Joe and Patrick who were already situated on the sofa, room enough for Pete between them. They worked their way through Star Wars the first two weekends, and Indiana Jones the third. The fourth, they fought over Die Hard (Joe’s choice) and Lord of the Rings (Pete’s).

“Die Hard is four movies, not three! It ruins the trilogy effect,” Pete whined, poking at Joe’s stomach.

“But you’re going to want to watch the extended editions, and I am not sitting here for 15 hours listening to you wax poetic about Elijah Wood’s eyes.” Joe crossed his arms, seeming firm. “Besides, Bruce Willis used to summer here! It’s fitting. And stuff.”

Pete turned to Patrick, hopeful. “You’re impartial! You decide.”

“Die Hard,” Patrick said, and Joe reached over to give him a high-five. “I’m lazy, but I don’t want to sit here _all_ day.”

Pete looked crestfallen, but he perked up around the middle of the first movie.

\---

“Guys!” Brendon called when he spotted Ryan and Spencer in their usual spot, counting the seals. His heart was hammering in his chest, but he tried to keep his smile on, to act normal. He hadn’t seen either of them in two weeks, and finally Brendon had made the decision that if they weren’t going to extend the olive branch, he would. Brendon was really good at pretending nothing was wrong. He’d had years of practice.

And when Spencer got up and met him halfway, he didn’t even have to fake the smile.

“Spencer Smith!” Brendon beamed, pulling him into a hug. He almost didn’t notice the way Spencer didn’t hug him back.

“Brendon,” Spencer sighed, and Brendon knew that tone. He held on tighter anyway. “He doesn’t want to talk to you right now, Brendon.”

Spencer weaseled his way out of Brendon’s grasp, but he put his hands on Brendon’s shoulders, almost looking sorry. Brendon had never seen Spencer look sorry before, except for sometimes when he went to the gallery to meet Brendon for lunch and there was no one else there.

“What did I do?” Brendon whispered, trying to wrack his brain. He’d kissed Patrick because they’d both been lonely and feeling like outsiders, but he could kiss whoever he wanted. Ryan didn’t care who he kissed, he’d made that clear. Until now.

“Just give it time,” Spencer said, wrapping an arm loosely around his shoulder. “But you can’t come out here anymore.”

Apparently, no one wanted Brendon’s olive branch. He felt his good mood sinking, but he walked away, silent and lost in his own thoughts.

\---

By October, two long months after Patrick had arrived, the bay was teeming with wildlife. However, as the weather turned darker, the tours began to dwindle now that the summer rush was over. 

When they needed supplies there was no longer a need to wait until their Tuesday day off. Pete and Patrick could handle the boat while Joe spent an afternoon dropping off test tubes or buying a new pair of binoculars after Pete had dropped theirs in the water while trying to show them he could balance it on his head.

One Friday afternoon found them in just that situation, Pete and Patrick sitting on the pier tossing rocks out as they waited.

“They’re not coming,” Patrick said for the third time, glancing at his watch. Over an hour and a half late. In his head, he was already counting how many of the data sheets he could have entered into their database, how many words he could have written on their research proposal about how tourism wasn’t affecting the whale behavior patterns in the area, how many…

Pete nodded. “I know.” Sighing, he dragged himself to his feet and held out an arm to help Patrick.

Patrick dusted himself off, turning his head toward the sky. “Shame, too, as the sun’s actually out today.”

Something changed across Pete’s face and he smiled, grabbing at Patrick’s hand. He’d been doing that more often lately, but Patrick didn’t question it much anymore.

“What are you doing?” Patrick laughed as Pete pulled him toward the boat.

“You’ve been here three months and you’ve barely even seen the area.” Patrick didn’t really think that was an answer, but he smiled anyway.

“Well, maybe if my boss didn’t have me working six days a week, I’d have time to see some things…”

“Maybe if your boss was rich, he wouldn’t have to work six days a week either.” Pete beamed, proud of his own logic, while Patrick laughed behind him and allowed himself to be dragged onto the boat.

“You didn’t have anything to do today, did you?” Pete asked but he wasn’t waiting for a response this time. “It’s a good thing I packed sandwiches. Though I don’t know what we’ll do about dinner. I keep telling Joe we should put a grill in. And fishing poles.”

“Aren’t we supposed to save the fish, not cook them?” Patrick asked, taking a seat on one of the benches and stretching out.

They didn’t spend a lot of time just the two of them, not with Joe around. Patrick wasn’t complaining, he liked Joe a lot. But as he searched his mind for the last time he and Pete had spent any time alone, he couldn’t come up with anything more than when Joe had made them clean the dishes after a rousing afternoon of the Terminator trilogy.

Pete shrugged. “Can’t save all of nature. There’s a chain of command, right? Isn’t that how the world works? So if some little fish were to end up in my stomach for me to have enough energy to go and save the whole ocean, well, so be it.”

“The whole ocean is pretty big.”

He turned to grin at Patrick, like it should have been obvious. “Have to start somewhere, right?”

Pete spent the rest of the short trip chattering happily about food, and asking Patrick about all his favorite places to eat in Chicago and if they were still open. He didn’t usually mention anything at all about his hometown, so Patrick was happy to amuse him until he docked in what Patrick had finally figured out was Horse Island, after some 100 tours of Pete or Joe sighing and saving him any time one of the passengers asked him.

“What are we doing?” Patrick asked, not really expecting an answer.

Pete lowered the Voyager’s anchor and then began to shove the sandwiches into his backpack.

The pier, and subsequent trail, led down to a sandy beach very unlike the ones back on the mainland. There were rocks, including some high boulders he could practically feel Pete vibrating with the energy to climb, but he hadn’t seen sand like this since California.

“We should have done this ages ago,” Pete was saying, leading them on, up a hill now. Patrick struggled to keep up with him, more in shape now than when he’d arrived but still not as fast as Pete. “You can’t fully appreciate anything from the boat. And these views are the reason I stayed.”

With that, he placed a hand on Patrick’s shoulder to stop him from walking and turned him around, facing out on the bay again. They were high enough now to see some of the other islands and the water – for once looking crystal clear blue – stretching out before them. Pete leaned against him, resting his head on his shoulder, and staring out with the same wide-eyed expression as Patrick.

“Definitely why I moved here,” he sighed.

Patrick hesitated. He’d always wanted to know, but felt it off-limits. “Why did you move at all?”

Pete didn’t tense beside him, just continued to stare out into the distance.

“I was a teacher.” He smiled against Patrick’s shoulder – he could feel it, and that sent an unexpected shiver down Patrick’s spine. “Since being a rock star didn’t really pan out, and I didn’t want a real job. Figured it was the next best thing.”

“So what happened?”

“I fell in love,” Pete whispered, and his grip on Patrick tightened, arm curling around his side to pull him in closer, like he needed to know someone else was there. Patrick was about to tell him he didn’t need to explain anything, but Pete was talking again. “They don’t like you dating a student, especially… There’s a lot of fucking homophobic assholes in academia. Open-minded liberal school, my ass.” His shoulders tensed, but he shook his head. “So they fired me, threw him out of school, and I ran as far away as I could. It seemed like the answer at the time, to show them and move somewhere foreign and exotic, away from anyone I’d ever met. Sometimes I miss home. Usually, I don’t. Not when I have this.”

Pete fell quiet for a minute, and Patrick wasn’t certain what to do. He was useless in situations like these. He had a good ear for listening and knew when to nod encouragingly or pat someone’s back, but when whoever was done talking, Patrick had no brilliant advice, no words of wisdom. He kissed Pete’s forehead again instead and closed his eyes, and eventually Pete started to relax.

“Today’s not sad,” Pete whispered against Patrick’s neck, and he was smiling again this time, untangling himself slowly from Patrick. “I think I see otters.”

Back on the beach, Pete was right – there were otters, a dozen or so. Pete and Patrick lounged against one of the boulders, watching them a few meters away, diving in and out of the water and chasing each other up and down the shore.

Pete took off his shoes and tossed them somewhere behind them, stretching his legs out so the tide could lap at his toes. It took more coaxing to get Patrick to do the same, but Patrick was firm about leaving his jeans on even as they got damp. Pete changed into shorts in his backpack, waving his extra pair like a flag and frightening off several of the otters.

“I’m king of the world!” he shouted later, finally on top of the tallest boulder that he had spent most of the afternoon eyeing, and Patrick was laughing so hard on the ground that he fell over onto his side.

By the time the sun was going down, they’d finished off the sandwiches and wandered along the shore far enough to find the only pub and convinced the owner to package them up more sandwiches, and a bottle of wine. Well, Pete had. Patrick had mostly cowered in the doorway, the owner glaring at his sopping wet clothes from where Pete had dragged him protesting into the water. Pete, whose boxers were likely still flapping in the wind on the flag he’d made with a stick and stuck in the ground, had made certain the rest of his clothes were dry.

“Did you even get a corkscrew?” Patrick asked, following along behind Pete. He was even slower now, dragged down by the damp clothes. Maybe he should have taken Pete’s extra pair of shorts afterall, but he refused, especially after Pete had stripped down to almost nothing. Patrick definitely did not look like that without his clothes on, and he didn’t want to subject mother nature to what he did look like.

“Do not underestimate my powers,” Pete warned, but he was laughing.

The sun was almost all the way down before they found their beach again, boxers mysteriously vanished (“I liked those!” he whined against Patrick’s ear, while Patrick grinned and reminded him, “Then you shouldn’t have left them near the otters.”). Pete had gotten a corkscrew, as well as several bags of chips, so they took turns passing the bottle back and forth while they munched on their roast beef sandwiches.

“So why did you leave Chicago?” Pete asked suddenly, and Patrick paused. He’d asked, so he supposed it was only fair.

“My ex,” he said after swallowing his bite, leaning back again and considering.

“Must have been some ex if you went all the way to Ireland. Pringle?” He held out the canister, but Patrick shook his head.

“I didn’t actually think they’d send me out this far. I’m glad they did though.”

Pete grinned and bumped their shoulders, handing him the bottle, which Patrick did take. “Me too, Patrick. Me too.”

They stayed out for a few more hours, talking in the darkness and listening to the waves that had fallen back again. The lighthouse some eight miles off turned on when it got dark enough, and its slow sweeping light circled, calming.

“They closed the lighthouse for awhile,” Pete said, head on Patrick’s shoulder again. “But everyone complained. The houses on these islands are so far, you might have to walk 40 minutes to your neighbors, you know? It meant they weren’t alone. I like that.”

Patrick closed his eyes, still able to catch when the light danced across them, hitting his eyelids. “I like that too,” he sighed.

 

\--------------------------------

_The bar was nowhere near packed, but this was the furthest gig they’d played from campus in awhile. Really, it was one of the only gigs they’d played in awhile. But Joe was nothing if not a professional, so he played the best he could and tried to get one or two of the girls occasionally looking up from their beers to clap along. Mostly, everyone just seemed to stare at them, especially when Joe did a high-kick off one of the speakers. They were never going to be rock stars, so they might as well enjoy it while it lasted, right?_

_After the set, the rest of the band loaded up their stuff but Joe, usually perceived to be the most trust worthy, was sent to the bar to get their cut. While the barman counted out the change from the register, Joe could feel one of the guys sitting at the bar staring him down and it made him hyper-aware of the sweat making his shirt stick to his skin, and the wild and crazy look his hair always seemed to take on after a show. He tried not to look up, but when he did, brown eyes were staring him down, mildly curious. “You’re the only one who can play,” he said, as casually as if he were asking for the time, and Joe laughed despite himself._

_“Yeah, well.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, smiling nervously. So far, Joe’s luck with cute guys in bars had not been good. The last one had stolen his wallet, actually. That had been tricky to explain to his parents the next morning._

_“You should get a different band. A good band,” Brown Eyes said, motioning to the bartender for two beers. Joe felt his throat swell up a little and he glanced around, nervous, wondering who was playing a practical joke on him. Guys like this didn’t talk to him._

_“That’s easier said than done,” Joe said lightly, making no move toward the beer._

_Brown Eyes grinned at that, too-big of teeth flashing in the dim lighting. “Don’t I know it. But sit down. It’s on me.”_

_Well, Joe couldn’t really argue with logic like that._

_The bartender eyed Joe and his beer warily as he counted out the money to him, but he said nothing about him being underage, and Joe said nothing about how the money was $10 short. Mutual indifference was kind of nice, he thought as he took a swig from the bottle. Though beer really wasn’t his favorite._

_“I’m Pete,” he said, and something about the way Pete’s fingers grasped his bottle made Joe pause. He wasn’t even aware someone could hold a bottle distinctly. “But more importantly, who are you?”_

_“Joe,” he said around his own bottle, holding out a hand quickly. Pete looked at it for a moment, bemused, but he shook it anyway._

_“You’re kind of cute,” Pete said in a way that didn’t feel wholly judgmental, but Joe flushed anyway and laughed nervously again, ducking his head._

_“That’s, um, okay.” He took another sip, and this one went down easier. It had been awhile since he’d really had anything to drink. College was so not the party place all the movies he’d grown up watching had promised. There were tests, and study sessions, and band practices, and a part time job at Starbucks. What there wasn’t a lot of was time. “A lot of people would disagree.”_

_“A lot of people aren’t me,” Pete said, leaning closer to laugh against his ear. Joe could feel his breath there, and it was maybe supposed to be hot, but he just twitched._

_“Well, no,” he reasoned. “If a lot of people were you, you’d either have like, a problem with your identity being stolen or you’d be a clone. And neither of those sound very good. Maybe the clone thing. Then you could build up an army and defeat the galactic empire…” He trailed off, wishing he hadn’t spoken at all. Joe’s cheeks turned bright red, and he downed the rest of his beer with every intent to take his money and get the hell out of there before Pete clubbed him over the head and stole it all because Joe was that much of a loser._

_But Pete didn’t produce a club or any other sort of a weapon. Instead, he burst out into high, loud laughter and caused some of the patrons to stare at him, but he just kept grinning at Joe. “I don’t know if I’d make a good galactic army. If it was just me.”_

_“There’s force in numbers,” Joe whispered, still embarrassed, but Pete wasn’t running. He motioned for two more beers, and something in Joe’s stomach was doing flip flops._

_\---_

_Pete looked even prettier without his shirt. That was about the only thought Joe could process after he’d been shoved roughly against one of the walls of Pete’s apartment, his head still swimming from the alcohol as Pete pressed tight against his thigh and he could feel his cock already hard under his jeans. Joe gasped, and the room kept spinning, faster and faster, so it was easier if he just closed his eyes and ran his fingers slowly down Pete’s chest._

_“So sexy,” Pete whispered against his ear, tugging lightly, and Joe tried to fight the urge to twitch again. He wasn’t sexy and he knew it, but there was a beautiful guy in front of him, going down on his knees, and really, all that was missing was the hidden prank camera or the morning hangover that included a missing kidney. He grinned down at Pete anyway as thoughts melted away, his jeans a forgotten tangle on the floor somewhere beside them as Pete took him into his mouth, tongue running up the length of his cock._

_But then._

_Then something very bad happened, and Joe was pushing him away and running toward the kitchen sink, throwing up all over the shiny faucet and spotless counter._

_Joe really didn’t remember the rest of the night, but when he woke up, Pete was gone. But his wallet was intact, his shirt was freshly washed, and there were directions for getting from the apartment to the nearest bus station._

_\---_

_Joe loved having late afternoon classes. Anything that didn’t require him to wake up before 10 am was a winner in his book, especially when that something was Marine Conservation Ecology. It wasn’t specifically what he wanted, but he had enough money saved up now to take the summer off from work and find a real internship working with penguins, and this was just a first step in the direction of protecting the wildlife he’d grown up loving._

_No one really looked as excited as he was to be there, though, so he pulled his hat down lower on his head and drew little stick figures in the margins of his notebook until their professor walked in, tossing his briefcase into a chair._

_“Welcome,” he said, grabbing the chalk and beginning to write in tight, scratchy handwriting across the board, “to Marine Conservation Ecology. I’m Professor Wentz. If none of that sounds familiar, you’re probably stoned, in which case, you better share with the class or get out.” Something about that voice was familiar, and Joe paused in drawing the last leg of his latest stick figure, trying to place it. He glanced at Professor Wentz’s back, considering._

_When he turned around, Joe dropped his pen altogether. Pete caught the motion and glanced toward him, stumbling over his own words in his speech, but he smiled quickly instead and tried to compose himself. He carefully didn’t look at Joe at all after that for the rest of the class, but Joe couldn’t help but stare._

_The only acknowledgement Joe got was a note, passed subtly to him on his way out the door, written in that same scratchy handwriting that read simply ‘See me in my office’._

 

****

Winter

“You’re not serious,” Joe said, not even bothering to look up from the paperwork spread out across what used to be a desk, but was now mostly just a table with Pete’s notebooks, old plates, seven calculators, and a lot of Joe’s cramped handwriting filling pages of various things sticking out of everywhere. One day, Patrick was going to organize it.

“Dead serious.” Pete nodded gravely from his position on the back of the couch where he perched precariously, seeming ready to tip over to the ground. Patrick mostly watched him, wondering how long before he really did.

Joe pulled off his glasses and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, pausing to consider the right words. “Pete, we’re not taking customers out on _kayaks_ to explore the caves. Especially not in November! They’d freeze their asses off. Can you get frost bite on your ass? Because if you can, we’d be sued for that.”

“There’s no frost in Ireland,” Pete said patiently, and Patrick watched as one of the notebooks sailed across the room. It landed at Pete’s feet rather unsatisfactorily.

“I actually agree with Joe,” Patrick said slowly, and both turned their heads to stare at him.

“Ha.” Joe leaned back and grinned, crossing his arms over his chest and staring Pete down.

“I thought you loved me best.” Pete ignored Joe, choosing to pout instead. But Patrick had enough experience to be mostly immune to it by now. Mostly.

He cleared his throat. “Those kayaks aren’t really sea worthy, are they? For long periods of time, at least?”

Pete narrowed his eyes. “We take them out all the time. So do the locals. No one’s drowned.”

“Yet,” Joe mumbled.

Patrick nodded slowly. “But the locals aren’t stupid tourists on vacations looking to swim with the dolphins.”

“We’ll tell them there’s sharks that can smell their tacky perfume,” Pete said brightly, and across the room Joe’s forehead hit the desk.

\---

When Pete inevitably went to go look at more sea worthy kayaks for a few days, Joe was left with Patrick. He liked Patrick, especially when he took Joe’s side over Pete’s, which no one else ever did, but the dynamic was all off without Pete around.

Joe knew Pete well enough to know they’d never done anything, but every time he caught Pete watching Patrick when he thought no one was looking, Joe felt his chest tighten. He pushed it back down, because looking was okay, especially when it meant they might spend their weekends all three cramped on a sofa watching Jaws for the third time that month, but he got to drag Pete into the bedroom when it got late enough to start thoroughly suggesting Patrick get lost for the rest of the night.

That option was sadly lacking without Pete, and it was getting harder to push that feeling back down the more Patrick talked to their customers, telling them how awesome their missing host was and how they’d have to come back and see him. Because Pete was just _so_ funny. _So_ good with the animals and _so_ charming.

Joe _so_ wanted to throw Patrick overboard.

And that sucked, because Patrick was awesome.

He tried explaining this on the phone to Spencer, who sounded particularly bored with him.

“So Pete’s got a wandering eye. We knew that. What’s your point?”

Joe sighed and leaned his head against his desk, pressing the phone closer to his ear. “I don’t know that I have one.”

“Good.” Spencer perked up. “So when are you coming to get these damn data sheets and water samples? You said you’d be by today. I have better things to do than wait around for you.”

“What else is there to do on an island, Spencer?”

“Better things than wait for you. Are you deaf?” He sounded particularly pissed today, and it was giving Joe a headache.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. With Pete gone, someone has to give the tours. And we’re booked this week.” He tapped his fingers along the desk, considering. Pete was gone for at least another two days, and they had an entire family of fifteen offer to pay double just to come in on Tuesday, and seven had booked for the next day. And somewhere in all of that, he still had to fill out the forms for the possible assignment in Chile. But… “Patrick can come.”

“No.”

Joe sat up, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it sooner. It would get Patrick off the boat and away from him for an afternoon, too. “But he can’t drive the boat, and if those water samples need to go that badly…”

“They can stay right here.” His voice was tenser, and Joe could practically see his lips pursing in annoyance on the other end, his fingers digging in harder to the wooden desk of his and Ryan’s cottage.

“I’ll send him on the ferry tomorrow, you two can borrow my Jeep. He’d probably love a trip out of the city, and I know you know where Andy’s lab is. It’s an awesome plan.”

“It’s an awful plan,” Spencer corrected.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said happily, already in a better mood. “I think I have better things to do than wait for you to realize I sign your paychecks. You’ll see Patrick at nine.”

With that, he hung up.

At least this way he didn’t have to push Patrick overboard. Joe liked Patrick.

\---

Patrick had never been on the ferry before, and it felt weird to be traveling over the Bay in anything that wasn’t the Voyager. It was too big, especially since the tourist season was over and the parking spots were now all empty, leaving several yards between him and the driver.

Who was dressed in neon green and sporting a visor and sunglasses, despite the cloudy sky overhead.

“That’s just Gabe,” Joe had said after dropping him off and seeing Patrick’s wide-eyed reaction. “He might bite, but he doesn’t mean it. Just don’t bite back.”

“Couldn’t you just take the samples in tomorrow?” he asked, hating the way his voice cracked at the end. Gabe was leering at him from the ferry, beckoning him forward.

Joe shook his head, giving Patrick a little nudge. “It has to be done. It won’t be so bad, Patrick. I’ll buy you a drink later, okay?”

That was definitely a photo of Justin Timberlake hanging around Gabe’s neck.

“Dead men don’t drink,” Patrick hissed, but Joe rolled his eyes and pushed him again, knocking him onto the boat where Gabe grabbed his hand and leaned down to kiss it.

“Welcome,” he said, drawing out his accent. “I’m your humble servant this afternoon. Your every desire, I will see to.”

Patrick squeaked.

Joe waved to him from the shore, and Patrick started to wave back, but changed his mind and flipped Joe off instead when he heard cackling from the shoreline.

Once on the boat, Patrick had claimed the corner seat as far away from Gabe as he could manage, but his voice still boomed out, echoing around the Bay, and Patrick could swear Gabe was staring at him from under those sunglasses.

“And which lovely island are we visiting today? Or maybe you just want a leisurely ride around the Bay?”

“Sherkin,” Patrick said quickly, and Gabe almost looked disappointed, but he mostly left Patrick alone for the rest of the ride.

When they docked at the same pier Patrick remembered from that first Date Night, Spencer and Ryan weren’t waiting. He didn’t see anyone at all, actually. Gabe was watching him expectantly, having been told they’d be going right back after they picked up two others.

“I’ll just… find them. I won’t be long.” Patrick scrambled over the side of the ferry onto the pier.

The island wasn’t quiet, but Patrick supposed it never was. Here, the sound of the late-morning waves crashing against the shoreline felt louder than usual. There were distant calls of birds somewhere off in the distance, and even a family of foxes rustling in a bush nearby.

But despite the noises, the place felt deserted. The only building he could see was a ruined church at the top of a small slope, and Patrick doubted Ryan and Spencer were in there.

When he reached the top of the slope to stand by the church, he looked around at the green, rolling and empty hills that seemed to stretch on in every direction. He’d been told a few hundred people lived here, but it seemed hard to believe.

“Patrick?”

He turned around quickly to find Jon leaning against the abandoned church, camera in hand and, thankfully, smile painted across his features. “What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since…” He trailed off, but the smile remained in place.

Patrick shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m supposed to be meeting Ryan and Spencer, to take some stuff to a lab, but… I don’t know where they are.”

Jon glanced down at a watch on his wrist and then turned to the east – where Patrick guessed Ryan and Spencer lived. There was no one on the horizon heading their way, but Jon reached out to give Patrick’s shoulder a friendly squeeze anyway. “They’re always late. Well, Ryan is. They’ll be around before too long.”

Patrick followed Jon’s gaze when it moved to the ferry, where Gabe was now lounging on one of the benches, shirt off and apparently sunbathing despite the lack of any sun in the sky. “He won’t be going anywhere,” Jon assured him, then began to lead him into the church.

There was no roof, which Patrick had been surprised he hadn’t noticed before. There were varying shades of gray stones, and as Jon led him through an open courtyard, he noted a graveyard off to one side. “I brought extra coffee, if you want it,” Jon offered, picking up two thermoses.

Patrick grabbed at one gratefully, taking a long sip. Joe had gotten him out of bed early that morning, telling Patrick he was giving Ryland the day off from carting his ass around, but it had also meant none of Alex’s coffee was waiting for him on their way out the door.

“This is the Abbey,” Jon said while Patrick took another sip, switching into tour mode. “It was destroyed in the 1500’s after the local clan stole 100 tons of wine from some sailors. It’s been cleaned up since then.” He continued to lead Patrick around the grassy area, pointing to the only room Patrick had seen that had a roof – it was a wide, open room with few windows, but light streamed in from cracks in the stone. “We have our art exhibits in there most of the time in the summer. We even show movies here sometimes, when the projector will work. If you’re still here in May, you should come.”

“I might,” Patrick said. He’d loved going to the movies at home, being able to sit in a theatre for a few hours and losing himself, but the idea of watching a movie without Pete leaning over him to steal his popcorn or Joe not mouthing the words along to his right felt wrong. He’d have to see if they’d come too.

Jon paused at something, then motioned for Patrick to follow again. “I think they’re here.” Patrick had heard nothing but their feet crunching the grass beneath them, but he followed obediently, and sure enough, Spencer and Ryan were standing at the bottom of the hill, looking bored and annoyed.

“Hey,” Jon called, and Spencer turned around first, smiling until he realized Patrick was there too. Ryan turned, but narrowed his eyes at Patrick. This was going to be a long day.

Together, Patrick and Jon walked down to the pier, Ryan and Spencer tracking their every move.

Jon stopped in front of Spencer, lopsided grin firmly in place. Patrick wondered if it hurt to smile that much, but Spencer was turning red and staring at him, so maybe it was having the desired effect. Maybe Spencer didn’t hate Jon after all.

“We were waiting for you,” Ryan snapped, crossing his arms.

From the boat, Gabe’s voice called out, “We were waiting for _you_ ,” but he made no move to get up.

“It was my fault,” Jon explained, shrugging. “I thought I’d show him around the Abbey while he waited. Get him some coffee.” Spencer’s cheeks flushed even more, and it was his turn to glare at Patrick. Why did everyone on this island hate him?

“Whatever,” Ryan sighed, grabbing at Spencer’s hand. “We need to go.”

“In a second,” he whispered, not moving from his position in front of Jon. When Ryan stared him down, Spencer cleared his throat and raised his voice. “I’ll be there in one second, Ryan.”

Sighing, Ryan marched off onto the ferry, sitting as far away from Gabe as seemed possible. At least Patrick wasn’t the only one freaked out.

But Patrick wasn’t entirely certain what to do. He looked between the ferry and Jon and Spencer, and both parties seemed to be ignoring him completely. Well, Gabe was maybe watching him out of the corner of his eye. Patrick stood there for so long it seemed too late to move, so he didn’t.

“You never come by anymore,” Jon said, fiddling with the camera in his hand.

“The gallery is closed,” Spencer said patiently, crossing his arms and looking a mirror image of Ryan. He actually did indifferent way better, but Patrick wasn’t going to tell either of them that.

Jon nodded slowly, titling his head. “So? It’s a small island. You could find out where I live.” He paused, smiling hopefully at Spencer. “I stole the espresso machine.”

“You always pick the worst times,” Spencer muttered, shaking his head and then jerking it toward Patrick, proving he at least knew Patrick existed. It was something. “I have to take him to Andy’s.”

“Every time is bad for you,” Jon said quietly, though he didn’t sound mad. When Spencer remained silent, Jon held up his hands. “The coffee’s eventually going to get cold, Spencer. But go on.”

Jon turned to walk back up the hill, and beside him, Spencer sighed. Patrick wanted to touch his shoulder, but he was afraid Spencer might attack him. “God, you suck,” Spencer sighed after a moment, when Jon’s back had disappeared behind the grey walls of the Abbey, but Patrick suspected the comment was directed at him and not Jon. Without waiting for a response, and Patrick had none, Spencer walked toward the ferry with Patrick trailing along behind.

\---

The ride to the lab felt like it took hours, but Joe had promised Patrick it was only an hour and a half to Andy’s lab in Cork. The last time Patrick had made this trip had been his first day in the country, and he’d slept through most of the countryside. It was odd not to see the ocean spanning out before them, but he pressed his face to the window and did his best to ignore Ryan and Spencer in the front seat, playing music Patrick actually liked, though he wondered if it was just left-over CDs from Joe.

“How’s Brendon?” Ryan had asked halfway through the ride, staring straight ahead. It had taken a few moments for Patrick to even realize he was the one being addressed.

“Um.” Patrick rubbed at the back of his neck, confused. “I don’t know? I only met him the once.”

Ryan’s eyes got wide, but he kept quiet. From his position, Patrick could see Spencer reaching over to put a hand over Ryan’s, and glancing back at Patrick in the rearview mirror with an unreadable expression. Patrick just went back to staring at the green hills and sheep outside.

When they finally reached Cork, it was like a different world. It was an actual city, with people bustling about and tall buildings hanging over them, even stretching on into the distance. Patrick knew a little about the place from what he’d heard from tourists on the boat, but he wanted to get out and see some of it. The car kept going, though, Spencer driving them further from the tall buildings and leading them to the outskirts of town, to a plainly decorated building. There was no sign, but a beat-up van outside had the words ‘HURLEY ENVIRONMENTAL AND LABORATORY SERVICES’ painted across it.

“This is it?” Patrick asked, glancing around. There were no other buildings in sight.

“Andy keeps a low profile.” Spencer hopped out of the driver’s seat and stretched his legs, but neither he nor Ryan waited for Patrick before they headed inside.

Just what kind of experiments went on here? But Patrick followed, and inside, it did look like any other laboratory he’d ever been in. There were microscopes and clean, clinical white walls. The only thing out of place, really, was the tiny red-headed man in a lab coat and shorts, sitting barefoot on a stool as he placed specimens on a slide.

“Hey Andy,” Spencer called, setting his bag down on one of the counters and moving to unpack the test tubes and folders marked with the week and different species names. Patrick had never really seen much of the actual information they were meant to be collecting, and the student in him itched to look through the files and analyze the numbers, to see what they were really accomplishing. It felt like all he’d done since he’d arrived was show tourists the area, point out a few dolphins or whales, and occasionally write down what they’d spotted. They took photos of all the animals, and matched them in a big book to see if there were any new animals each year, but that was as exciting as it got.

“You haven’t been here in awhile,” Andy said after a moment, setting the slide down. “Didn’t miss me?”

“We don’t get off the Island much,” Ryan said. Andy nodded as though he understood and began to move the test tubes, motioning for them to follow suit with the remaining ones. Patrick picked up one container and followed him to the other side of the room.

“You must be Patrick,” Andy said, glancing at him over the rim of his thick black glasses. “If you ever get tired of working the boat, you can come here. Though my last two assistants didn’t work out well.” He shot a pointed look at Ryan in particular, who fidgeted uncomfortably.

“It’s not his fault he’s clumsy,” Spencer offered in Ryan’s defense.

“I say it is.” Andy shrugged after a moment and turned a blinding smile onto Patrick. “Anyway, if they treat you bad, you’re welcome here. And say hi to Mixon for me.”

At Patrick’s blank stare, Spencer sighed. “Do you pay any attention? He’s Scimeca’s bartender. He serves you every Date Night.”

“I only went once,” Patrick said, and Spencer seemed surprised at that. Even Ryan looked a bit guilty.

They didn’t stay long. Once the folders were placed in the right bins, Andy shooed Ryan out of his lab and told them he had a lot of work to do. Ryan wouldn’t meet Patrick’s eyes on the way home, but when they parked in front of the B&B, Spencer leaned back, smiling hopefully at Patrick. “I hope you can come to Date Night this week. Really.”

Patrick paused. Spencer seemed sincere, and it might be nice to get out of the bed and breakfast more than one night a week. “I think I might,” he said, and Ryan’s shoulders relaxed. 

\---

Spencer kept his word and the next two Date Nights went by without a hitch. Ryan even stopped glaring at Patrick long enough to hold a few conversations, and when he got very quiet and couldn’t sleep one night, he told Spencer he liked Patrick.

Spencer’s thoughts were so preoccupied with how well the second Date Night had gone that when the ferry docked, Gabe already drunk and crooning what he claimed were Spanish lullabies at them, he almost didn’t notice the two figures waiting at the bottom of the pier. But when he looked, there were Jon and Brendon, staring up at him. Jon smiled hard, clutching his camera bag.

Shit.

Spencer glanced back at Ryan, who was still looking out at the water on the opposite side, not yet having noticed their visitors.

He turned back to Jon, trying to motion for the two of them to leave, but Jon just shook his head slowly and even in the moonlight, Spencer could see him holding up two fingers and motioning him forward. Brendon just paced back and forth, looking ready to pass out.

There was no way to yell down at them without drawing attention, and they were too close to the island now for Spencer to fake having left his cell phone back in Joe’s jeep on the mainland. He turned to Ryan again, closing his eyes to draw his courage, then walked over. “Brendon’s here,” he said slowly, and Ryan stared back at him blankly, not understanding.

“What do you mean?”

“He and Jon are here.” When Ryan continued to stare at him, Spencer pointed to the pier, where two figures were now clearly illuminated.

“What,” Ryan whispered, but the thought was never finished as he stood and moved past Spencer to the edge of the ferry, leaning out to look at them. Spencer followed, and he saw Brendon give a slight, nervous wave. Ryan even returned it.

Together, they climbed onto the pier. Ryan’s lips were a thin line, and for once, Spencer couldn’t read him. Brendon, on the other hand, was vibrating with nervous energy. He tried to bolt once, but Jon put a hand on his arm to stop him.

“We thought we’d surprise you,” Jon said, holding his camera bag tighter.

Spencer wondered just how long they’d been waiting here, as their cheeks were pink and their breath no longer came out in puffs of air that hung in the night sky. He figured he owed them something for waiting, but he wasn’t certain what. Spencer crossed his arms. “And why would you do that?”

“Hi,” Brendon stuttered out beside them, Ryan tilting his head to gaze at him like he was some abstract painting he never could quite comprehend.

“We thought it might be nice.” Jon was staring him down, silently daring.

“But _why_?”

Brendon tried to bolt again, but this time it was Ryan who stepped forward to put a hand on his arm. “Wait.” Brendon stilled under the touch, looking at him with wide, nervous eyes. Slowly, Ryan moved closer and Brendon drew in a sharp breath.

“Can we talk?” Brendon whispered.

Ryan nodded, glancing at Spencer once for permission, and they had a silent conversation in the few seconds that passed before Brendon began moving up the hill to the Abbey, out of sight. Ryan trailed along behind after Spencer gave a stilted nod, leaving him alone with Jon.

Spencer uncrossed his arms, but he continued to fidget and hated himself for it. “Seriously, Walker, why did you two come here? How did you even know we’d be here?”

“Every other Monday, right? You’re a creature of habit.” He stepped forward, smile flashing in the moonlight. “Brendon came because I thought he’d distract Ryan. Clearly, I am a genius.”

“An evil genius,” Spencer corrected, and was pleased his voice didn’t shake. Jon was definitely invading his personal space now. It had been weeks since he’d seen Jon at all, and longer since he’d thought of the way he always smelled like photo chemicals and coffee beans, with a hint of sea salt. It was all he could smell now.

Jon reached into his bag and removed two thermoses, holding one out to Spencer who took it hesitantly. “I’m a patient guy,” Jon said, sipping from his slowly. Spencer could smell the coffee even before he lifted his own thermos to his lips. “But this is kind of the last chance you get to have coffee with me.”

Spencer motioned to the cup in his hand. “I’m pretty sure I already am.”

Jon smiled properly, his face softening. “Then come for a walk.”

He led them down the beach, even though it felt too late to be doing this. There were no lights anywhere except the moonlight reflecting off the water, and Spencer tripped over rocks and dried seaweed as he walked with Jon, trying to decide if he was being led off to his doom, or if he’d care. Mostly, Spencer settled on the latter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jon alone without Ryan.

“That was clever, with Brendon,” he murmured when they reached the top of a hill.

“I’m a clever guy. You’d know that, if you hung around more.”

Spencer sighed and took a large gulp of his coffee. “You always do that. I don’t have all the free time in the world.”

Jon shrugged. “Maybe. But I think what you really mean is, you don’t have that much time away from Ryan, which means no Jon time.”

He wanted to spit back a response, age old anger boiling in the pit of his stomach about how no one had the right to judge his and Ryan’s friendship because no one understood them like each other, but he’d had the same thought. It seemed petty even to Spencer to yell at Jon for that one.

Spencer’s thoughts were still swirling around in his head, trying to come up with the appropriate reaction, when Jon stopped in front of a small cottage Spencer hadn’t even noticed before. It wasn’t very impressive, and in the dark the vines growing along the cobblestone walls blended in with the green hills painting the backdrop. “This,” Jon said, opening the door and flicking on the light, “is home.”

The inside was a completely different story.

Spencer tried not to stare at the brightly covered red wall to his right, or the black and white photos lining the hall. He knew they were Jon’s, could decipher various parts of the island or had seen them hanging in the gallery before it had closed for the winter. There was one, though, of Spencer and Ryan, heads bowed together and looking over that day’s seal count on top of the hill, that he hadn’t even realized Jon was present for. That photo, he stopped at.

Jon laughed, sounding almost embarrassed. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“You’re kind of a stalker,” Spencer breathed when Jon stepped up beside him to look at the photo with him. “But a talented one.”

They stood in silence for a few moments, before Jon sighed and set his coffee on a nearby table, wringing his hands together. “It took me how long to get you here? I’m not waiting another five months to have another conversation.”

Spencer squinted at him, still trying to read him. “I don’t know how I feel about strange men distracting my best friend so they can lure me away to their stalker cave. Though,” he paused, finishing off the last of the thermos, “I definitely missed the espresso machine.”

“I’m hoping you feel pretty strongly about it,” Jon said, and the playful smile was nowhere in sight, throwing Spencer off his game. Then again, where Jon Walker was concerned, Spencer kind of had no game at all.

When Spencer continued to stand there and stare at him, Jon sighed and there he was again, in Spencer’s face. “You’re such an idiot,” Jon mumbled, and Spencer would have argued but then there were lips on his and oh, so coffee was definitely a code word for hooking up. Spencer had been hoping, but coffee for coffee’s sake was also good, but then there was Ryan.

Jon pulled back, narrowing his eyes.

“Why’d you stop?” Spencer frowned, reaching to wrap a hand around Jon’s waist and pull him in closer again.

“Stop thinking, will you?” Jon sighed, and this time when he kissed Spencer, the thoughts all vanished from his mind except for that he wanted to remember the little noises Jon made when he dragged his teeth over his lower lip or threaded his fingers through his hair.

“I wanted to do that forever,” Jon whispered what felt like hours later, but hadn’t even been five minutes.

Spencer closed his eyes. “Me too.”

“Then will you stop avoiding me?” Jon asked, tugging a little sharply at Spencer’s coat sleeve. “Because I’m kind of crazy about you, and this whole being ditched thing is hard on a guy’s crush.” Laughing, Spencer nodded.

“But I don’t want to tell Ryan yet.”

“You just want me for my coffee, anyway.”

“What do you think he’s doing right now, anyway? With Brendon?”

Jon rolled his eyes and leaned his head back, groaning. “Making out, simply to spite me because I’m _not_.”

Spencer was definitely smiling for real now, and he could feel the heat spreading across his face, knew he probably looked like a fool. But none of it mattered when Jon finally smiled back at him, looking just as stupid, and Spencer reached for him again. “Shut up, Jon.”

\---

“Are you going over to Pete’s for Christmas?”

Patrick looked up from his morning fruit plate to find Ryland staring at him and Alex leaning in from the kitchen, pretending to be interested in some minute design on the wall and not at all listening to them, though very clearly failing at the pretending thing. Patrick swallowed the rest of his grapefruit.

“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Why would I? He lives with Joe. They spend it together, right?” The look they were giving him was making Patrick feel uneasy. Even Indiana Jones, who was usually still curled up asleep on the windowsill this early, seemed to be perking his head up to stare at him.

“No reason,” Ryland said quickly, sitting down and opening the jam jar for his toast.

Alex, who had forgotten he wasn’t meant to be paying attention, added, “You’re welcome to spend it with us, if you don’t have other plans. I’m sure it’s hard, not being home for the holidays.”

Patrick hadn’t thought about home in awhile – he called his mom once a week and they always caught up on anything important, but there was no one else to really miss anymore. He didn’t know if this was information he should share with his landlords, though, so Patrick just smiled and picked up a piece of an orange.

“Though,” Ryland added slowly, “I think Pete will ask.”

“Just, if he doesn’t.” Alex smiled at him quickly before returning to chopping up whatever delicacy he was working on in the kitchen.

“Pete and Joe usually do their own thing,” Patrick reminded them, and across the table Ryland appeared to have a coughing fit so bad Alex actually stepped into the dining room, crossing his arms and staring Ryland down until he stopped.

“You hang out with them a lot,” Ryland said, and Patrick tried to convince himself he was imagining the smile.

Alex huffed and gave up on whatever was in the kitchen, joining them. “What he means is, we never see you.”

“I thought I was usually in your way?”

“You are,” Ryland said, then winced at something Alex did to him under the table. “Um, only not?”

Alex reached over to squeeze Patrick’s shoulder and it felt oddly reassuring. “Just, be careful. You don’t know everything about them.”

Patrick nodded to make them feel better and to get them to stop staring so he could finish his breakfast in peace, but the words echoed in his mind, whispering suspicions and secret wishes that didn’t seem unfounded.

Suddenly, Patrick was missing home a lot more than he’d realized.

\---

Sure enough, Pete did ask. Alex’s words were still lingering in his mind, but when Pete promised most of the town showed up to his annual Christmas Eve party, Patrick had thought it would be safe.

What he hadn’t expected was to walk into the house Pete shared with Joe and find it a verifiable winter wonderland on crack, complete with Hemmy sitting in a corner sulking at the reindeer outfit he’d been forced into.

People, dozens of them, were already there and talking in groups, their voices rising above the old fashioned Christmas tunes playing in the background. There were hundreds of white snowflakes cut out of paper and taped to every wall and hanging from the ceiling. The whole place smelled like gingerbread, and the desk Patrick had been itching to organize all season was finally cleared off to serve temporarily as a holding ground for mountains of Christmas cookies and other treats. There was mistletoe in every corner, and some two inches from Patrick’s face, was Pete.

“Welcome,” he slurred a little, trying not to drop the mostly-empty bottle of wine clasped in his left hand, “to Christmas!” Pete grinned widely at Patrick and blew on the end of his Santa hat that had fallen into his face, but it didn’t budge.

“Ignore him,” Joe said from nearby, arranging cookies on a plastic plate. He was dressed as an elf, though Patrick suspected that was Pete’s doing. “He thinks since I’m Jewish and he’s a Christmas-a-holic, it means he can start getting drunk on eggnog seven days early.”

Pete nodded, staring wide-eyed at Patrick. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Joe sighed, shaking his head at Pete. “Oh, just say yes or he’ll never let it go.”

“Yes,” Patrick laughed.

“Knew I could count on you!” Pete slapped his shoulder before wandering off.

Joe stepped up beside Patrick, offering him a cookie. “He’s mostly playing it up. He likes to remember this holiday, it’s the only one he likes after Halloween.”

“What holiday do you like?”

Joe tilted his head, considering. “Groundhog Day.”

“You just like Bill Murray.”

“Duh.” He took a long sip of his eggnog, grinning at Patrick from behind the plastic cup.

\---

Ryan was definitely sulking. But, to his credit, he was trying hard to hide it from Spencer and to act like he didn’t want to be anywhere other than in a crowded room, some few feet away from where Brendon was talking to Greta and laughing a little too loudly, already drunk. Spencer patted his knee affectionately, and appreciated that Ryan wasn’t full on pouting.

What he didn’t appreciate was the way Jon was eyeing him from the corner, perched underneath a sprig of mistletoe. He’d tried hard to dissuade Jon from coming at all, but he’d had his own invitation from Joe as they knew each other from Chicago, or maybe Joe provided Jon with his weed. Spencer still wasn’t certain.

“I want to go home,” Ryan sighed, glancing across the room to where Gabe was standing on a table and singing a modified rendition of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, with help from Alex and Ryland. They weren’t getting back to their island any time soon.

Ryan leaned back and closed his eyes. “I hate my life.”

Jon was definitely glaring at him now, but Spencer just shrugged helplessly at him. He knew what Jon was thinking – they’d been having this same conversation for weeks now. Jon wanted more than leaving his door unlocked late at night or Tuesdays, when Spencer pretended to be working on some early-morning assignment for Pete in order to sneak off and spend the day with Jon. He was surprised Ryan fell for it at all considering he knew how much Spencer liked to sleep in.

Spencer just didn’t know if he was okay with more than that. Telling Ryan meant there was something to even tell him about.

Besides, sneaking around was kind of fun. It had been years since he’d properly employed his stealth mode, and even if he was a bit rusty, it felt exciting.

Finally, Jon gave up his position in the corner and walked over, firmly planting himself on the other side of Spencer.

“Hey, Ryan,” he said, and Ryan raised a hand in greeting. “Having a good time at the party?”

“I hate Christmas,” Ryan said darkly.

Even from across the room, Pete shouted, “I hate _you_ , Ryan Ross. Do not spoil Christmas!”

“You suck!” Ryan shouted back, and Jon was nice enough to hand whatever was in his red plastic cup to Ryan, letting him take a long sip. “You do not suck, Jon Walker.”

“I might. You’d have to ask this one, though,” he said, raising a brow at Spencer, who turned bright red and made choking hand motions to Jon. It just made him grin more, and that in itself was a little worrying.

Ryan was ignoring them completely, though, lost in his thoughts. “You know who _really_ sucks?”

“I do, actually, it’s-” Jon started, but Spencer dug a finger sharply into his side, and Jon yelped in pain. He cleared his throat, starting over. “Why don’t you just tell Brendon you like him?”

“That’s not better,” Spencer hissed. “He’s right over there.”

“Brendon does not like me,” Ryan sighed dramatically.

Jon and Spencer both glanced toward Brendon, who was definitely pretty far gone at that point, and sitting in the lap of their boss, Victoria Asher. Jon had told Spencer he liked Victoria, sure, she signed their paychecks and brokered their art, but Brendon usually just made high pitched noises and hid when she was around. “Bullshit,” he said, taking another sip from his drink.

“I asked him,” Ryan said. “He said no.”

That was news to Spencer.

“You can stop gaping at me like a fish,” Ryan muttered, and Spencer’s eyes narrowed, but he closed his mouth. “It happened.”

“When, exactly?”

Ryan waved his hand dismissively. “In the Abbey.”

Jon was leaning closer, pressed mostly against Spencer. It was sending warm tingles down his spine and his fingers itched to feel the material on Jon’s shirt, but he controlled himself.

“Are you sure you didn’t just ask him if he liked you? And he freaked out and ran?” Jon asked.

Ryan finally lifted his head, looking at Jon for a long time. “He told you?”

Jon shrugged. “We’re friends.”

Spencer hit Jon’s arm, hard enough to make him pull back and look at Spencer. “You didn’t _tell me_?”

This time, he looked a little sad. “I thought our policy was friends first, Spencer. Truth later.”

There wasn’t even any way he could argue with that. Sighing, Spencer pulled away from them both and went to get more punch. He really hoped someone had spiked it by now.

\---

After an hour, Patrick found himself squished into one corner of the sofa next to Greta who was giggling madly as she tried to stop Brendon from climbing over Victoria.

He sipped his beer and watched, amused, as Greta grabbed one of Brendon’s flailing arms and pulled it back sharply toward her. Brendon jerked belatedly, spilling his drink over his own shirt and Victoria’s lap.

Victoria stood quickly, brushing at her skirt and scowling at Brendon as she muttered something about artists and children and incompetent dorks. Brendon looked crestfallen, but only until Greta wrapped her arms around him.

Patrick looked away, drinking a little more deeply and he smiled when he saw Ryan looking their way. He raised his hand in a friendly wave. Ryan’s plastic cup collapsed in his hand as his fist clenched and he stormed away, Spencer and Jon trailing slowly after him.

Joe was sitting on the stairs with Gabe, both leaning back against the wall, eyes closed as they passed a joint back and forth. They looked happy and relaxed and, thankfully, in no mood to sing anymore dirty Christmas carols.

Patrick needed more beer.

He pushed himself to his feet and squeezed past Alex and Ryland, who were busy kissing drunkenly under the mistletoe hanging in the doorway to the kitchen.

Patrick paused when he finally got past, stopping when he saw Pete sitting on the kitchen counter, playing with some gingerbread men. The perky, excited host from earlier had vanished, replaced by a darker, sadder looking Pete. Patrick blinked at him for a moment before remembering why he’d come into the kitchen at all. “I was just looking for more beer.”

Pete, who Joe was right, did not look drunk at all anymore, gestured to the bucket of ice on the table that was keeping the bottles cool.

Patrick glanced down and smirked. “It’s empty.”

Pete jumped down from the counter and bit the head off one of the gingerbread men, chewing it loudly. He pushed the other one into Patrick’s hand and walked across the room to throw open the back door, letting the cold air in.

“Glorious Irish winter,” he explained. “My own personal refrigerator.” He picked up two bottles from one of the many six packs lining the back porch wall, and sat down on the one step leading down to the grassy area, motioning for Patrick to join him.

He hesitated, but did as he was told. They sat in companionable silence for awhile, drinking their beers and looking out across the hills, lit only by moonlight. Patrick didn’t know how many times he’d been here before, but he’d never really taken in the view. It was gorgeous.

“Are you having a good time?” Pete asked after the minutes began to stretch on, Patrick’s fingers going numb in the cold.

“It’s a fun party,” he nodded, because it was. But Patrick didn’t know many people here, at least not well enough to go up to them and start a conversation.

Beside him, Pete snorted. “That’s not what I asked.” Finally, he smiled and turned to Patrick, who allowed himself to relax a little. He rested his head against Pete’s shoulder, telling himself he could blame the alcohol later.

“We could go for a walk,” Pete murmured against his hair. Patrick closed his eyes, content.

“It’s too cold. This is nice. Let’s just stay like this.”

Pete sighed against his hair and nodded slowly. “I guess.” He paused, making a face – Patrick could feel it. “I’m kind of bored.”

Patrick pulled back just enough to look up at Pete. “I thought you loved Christmas?”

“I do, but… they’re all drunk now. And I’m not. And there’s no snow. It’s not Christmas without snow.” He reached a foot out to press the tip of his sneaker against the wet grass, listening to the slippery noise it made when he dug it down. “It rains all the damn time, but it never snows.”

Patrick took a long sip from his beer, considering. “You miss Chicago?”

Pete laughed loudly, but it didn’t sound happy. “I don’t know. Yeah. But it was time to leave. You know how sometimes you get that feeling that you’re not supposed to be somewhere anymore, that it’s time to move on? It was that kind of a feeling.”

“Do you feel that way about here?” He held his breath until he realized he was even doing so, and then Patrick released it all at once, making a loud noise.

“I was supposed to go to Antarctica,” he said slowly, looking up at the stars. “Before I got fired. Do a research thing down there when I finished the semester teaching. That’s how I met him at college, actually. He wanted to save the penguins.”

Patrick grinned around his bottle. He couldn’t imagine Pete in Antarctica in thick winter coats, goggles on his eyes as he trekked after polar bears and penguins. “Do penguins need rescuing?” he asked slowly, and then Pete started to laugh as well, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I liked whales.” Pete set his bottle down, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Sometimes, I think we’re the ones who need rescuing.”

Patrick glanced sideways at him, trying to decipher what he meant, but Pete was staring right at him, pupils a little overblown from the alcohol. In the dim light, they seemed to glow, and Patrick felt his chest tighten.

“Pete?” he whispered, and his voice cracked on the end.

“I like you,” Pete said suddenly, still staring at him with the wide, hopeful eyes that made Patrick feel ten times drunker than he already was. “And I’m going to kiss you, unless you stop me.”

“I, I,” Patrick stuttered, but in the end, he never finished his sentence. Pete was dating Joe, but Patrick liked Pete. Enough to close his eyes and run his fingers slowly through his hair when Pete leaned closer, brushing their lips together. His silly Santa hat drooped too low, the ball on the end tickling at Patrick’s nose until Pete pulled it off altogether and tossed it into the grass. Their lips were cold from the chill outside, but Pete’s body was warm when he leaned closer, his own hands constantly moving, cupping the back of his neck, running down his chest, stroking his arm. It felt good. Too good. The butterflies he’d been getting in his stomach every time Pete grabbed his hand on the boat or whispered a movie line in his ear were back in full force, and this time, there was no denying that it was anything other than attraction.

Ryan opened the door to the back porch, holding an empty case of beer. “Pete, you’re out of… Oh.” He paused, tilting his head as Patrick pulled away quickly, flushed and embarrassed. Pete just stared up at Ryan.

“Beer?” Ryan asked after a moment, and Pete motioned to the cases lining the wall. Ryan grabbed one and started to head back inside, but he paused in the doorway. “Joe’s not going to like that.”

“You didn’t seem to mind when it was you,” Pete shot back, and Patrick felt a little sick to his stomach.

Ryan looked at them both one last time before shrugging. “I’m not telling him. But he’ll find out.” With that, he was gone.

Pete’s shoulders deflated while Patrick stood, feeling anxious and guilty. He liked Joe, a lot. He usually saved the last piece of pizza for him, and he didn’t make fun of Patrick when he needed to be reminded for the third time in a week which type of bird was which to tell the tourists. And he was making out with his boyfriend. “I should go,” he said, scrambling to his feet.

“Patrick, wait, let’s talk…” Pete didn’t make a move to get up, though.

The B&B was too far to walk to in the cold and it was locked anyway, so Patrick was forced to hide in the corner near where Ryland and Alex had moved to. No one was really bothering them, and he hoped maybe if he stood there long enough, they’d get the idea that he wanted to go home.

They didn’t.

In the end, it was Jon who saved him, stepping into his corner and glancing up at the mistletoe overhead. Patrick sidestepped quickly, while Jon laughed. “We’re going,” he said, motioning to where Gabe was practically passed out on the stairs with Joe. “He gave us the keys to the ferry and his car.”

Patrick raised both brows. “Really?”

Jon grinned and shrugged. “He said he’d do it for the good of the rabbit. I have no idea what he meant, but I don’t think we should stick around to find out. You want to come crash with us? I’ll take you and the ferry back here in the morning.”

Patrick hesitated, but when he spotted Pete finally coming in from the cold, rubbing his hands to get warm and laughing at something William was saying, he grabbed at Jon’s hand instead. “Let’s go!”

The ride back was peaceful, though they didn’t talk much. Spencer and Ryan chatted quietly, as they always did, though Patrick thought he heard Brendon and Pete both mentioned, and he paled at the idea that he might actually be the center of their conversation. After that, he stopped eavesdropping.

When they got back to the mainland, there was one awkward moment where they all stood around in silence, staring at Patrick, trying to decide who should take him home. 

Eventually, Spencer spoke up. “Why don’t you take him back, Ryan? I should make sure Jon gets home okay.”

Ryan frowned. “Why? He’s a grown man.”

Spencer glanced between them for a moment. “He’s kind of drunk, though. So I should go home with him. Make sure he’s okay.”

Jon, who had been walking fine all night, suddenly stumbled over a rock and grinned up stupidly at Ryan from his position on the ground.

Ryan shrugged. “Okay. Come on, then, Patrick.”

\---

Ryan and Spencer’s cottage was exactly the way Patrick had pictured it. It was very simple, both on the outside and with its furnishings on the inside, with few personal belongings. There were books, though. Everywhere.

“You like to read?” Patrick asked, picking up a copy off the kitchen table while Ryan put on a pot of tea. _The Old Man and the Sea_. “I think I read this one,” Patrick nodded. Ryan actually looked impressed, until Patrick added, “I may have fallen asleep halfway through it, though.”

“Books are better company than people,” Ryan said carefully, holding his ground on his side of the kitchen. “So are fish.”

“Better than Brendon?”

It might have been the alcohol, but Ryan smiled a little and pointed a spoon at Patrick. “Careful. Or no tea for you.”

Patrick took a seat, skimming through some of the other books on the kitchen table, though he didn’t recognize many other titles. When the tea was done, Ryan brought two steaming cups over and sat across from him, sipping his slowly. Even from behind his mug, though, Patrick could feel him watching him, so it wasn’t a big surprise when Ryan leaned closer and asked, “You like him, right?”

“Who?”

Ryan rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “Pete.”

Patrick sighed quietly and went to take a sip of his own tea, but it was too hot and it burned his tongue, pinpricks of pain numbing it. “So what if I do? It would appear so does everyone else.”

“He and Joe aren’t really dating, you know.”

Patrick nodded slowly, completely unbelieving. “As evidenced by the shared house, bedroom, dog, business… Yeah. Totally not dating.”

Ryan paused, tapping his fingers restlessly against the table until he could find his words. “Well, they are. But they’ve just been together forever, and it’s better than being alone, right? But they’ve been known to date other people…”

“You said that Joe wasn’t going to be happy tonight. And I don’t blame him. If I like Pete, it’s just… some silly little crush. I’m not going to kiss him again.” And he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Maybe if he kept repeating that, he’d stop thinking about the way Pete had looked at him before it happened.

“You say that now.” Ryan was staring at him, analyzing.

Patrick kicked him lightly under the table, trying to deflect the conversation. He didn’t really want to think about any of it. “Is that what happened with you?”

Ryan’s shoulders tensed for a moment, then he shook his head. “I never fought him off. I liked him, and we both knew it wasn’t a long term thing. I was into someone else.”

It was Patrick’s turn to stare Ryan down. “Why don’t you just tell Brendon?”

The corners of Ryan’s lips quirked up, and suddenly he looked older, more worn down. “Why don’t you tell Pete?”

“To be fair,” Patrick grinned, leaning closer, “Brendon really is single.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Ryan leaned back, waving his hand. “No one wants to be turned down. And besides, we leave soon, unless they renew our scholarships. What’s the point?”

\---

Spencer stared up at the ceiling, counting the seconds from the tick-tock of the clock in the hallway. The house was dead silent except for Jon’s soft breathing beside him, and if he waited just a few minutes more, he could probably sneak out without waking Jon.

It wasn’t that Spencer didn’t want to spend the night. He had, once or twice, but it caused Ryan to ask questions he wasn’t willing to answer yet.

Carefully, Spencer started to sit up, trying not to jostle the bed at all. An arm snaked around his waist, holding him in place. Spencer sucked in a sharp breath and then laughed, embarrassed. “I thought you were asleep.”

Jon started to pull Spencer back down beside him, pressing his nose against his bare shoulder when he had him back against the mattress. “It’s Christmas, Spence. Just stay.”

Spencer closed his eyes, imagining Ryan back at home, sitting up and waiting for him. “You know I can’t.”

“No,” Jon argued, biting playfully at the exposed skin. “I know no such thing.”

They tilted their heads and kissed languidly for a moment, until Spencer broke it off and tried to get up again, but Jon’s grasp was firm. “Jon,” he laughed, squirming. “Come on, really now.”

“Do I embarrass you or something? Are photographers really that much of a social stigma?” He lifted his head to meet Spencer’s gaze, still sounding serious. “Are you worried they won’t let you sit at the cool table anymore at lunch?”

Spencer batted at his shoulder until Jon broke into a grin, and he rolled his eyes. “God,” he sighed, raising his hands to cover his face. “I’m dating a dork.”

“So we _are_ dating.” Jon pushed at him a little, poking his side. “Because I’m not so sure, Spencer. Because we can’t go anywhere, we can’t tell anyone, we can’t wear matching jogging suits...”

“You know why,” he sighed.

“No,” Jon said again, slower, and this time the playfulness was vanished from his tone. “I really don’t, at all. Why can’t we tell Ryan? He’s not going to hate you for having a boyfriend. I think he even kind of likes me.”

“He likes you fine,” Spencer agreed, and he moved his hands to run them through his hair. “He’d be happy if I had a boyfriend.” 

Jon was frowning now, but he laughed – mostly for Spencer’s benefit. He was starting to be able to tell all of Jon Walker’s laughs apart, and that thought twisted his stomach up in knots and made him want to never leave this bed. “I think I’m confused now.”

“Ryan thinks people only have time for one person.” When Jon didn’t look at him like he was crazy, Spencer rolled closer, resting his head on Jon’s shoulder. The ceiling was a much more neutral place to stare at, anyway. “And so if I have a boyfriend, he thinks… we can’t really be friends. He avoids me. And makes wild and crazy plans to run away without me.” Sometimes Spencer missed Brent, in the first few weeks after he’d chased Ryan to Ireland, before the scholarship money had even gone through on his end, but Ryan was more important to him in the end. If he had to choose between Jon and Ryan, though… His stomach hurt, but for a different reason this time.

“That’s crazy,” Jon said against his hair, and Spencer was ready to pull away, but Jon must have sensed it and wrapped his arms tightly against him. “But we don’t have to tell him until we can convince him to be un-crazy.”

“Good luck with that,” Spencer muttered.

Jon grinned into his hair. “Thank you. And just for the record, this so does not mean you get to leave me all alone on Christmas Eve. I permit you to call him, however. See what a good boyfriend I am? I let you call people.”

Spencer rolled his eyes. “Are you going to let me pick out my own clothes next?”

“Maybe. But only after you wear the matching jogging suit.”

Spencer grabbed his pillow and whacked Jon’s shoulder with it, but he was giggling too hard to care.

\---

Pete didn’t sleep at all. Joe always knew when he woke up whether or not he had, because there’d be strange origami creations made out of sticky notes or the bed sheets would be destroyed and wrinkled unlike from Pete’s peaceful sleep. Any time he opened his eyes to find Pete staring up blankly at the ceiling, he knew his boyfriend hadn’t gotten any sort of peace the night before.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispered, turning his head to press soft kisses against Pete’s skin.

“Merry Christmas,” Pete echoed back, reaching to run his fingers through Joe’s hair slowly, needy. Something was definitely wrong, but the night before was still mostly a haze and he didn’t remember anything too drastic happening at the party. Brendon had thrown up all over their garden, he remembered that. But the garden had come with the house, and neither Pete nor Joe really gave a damn about it.

Joe smiled against his skin anyway, pressing closer. “So do I get my present now?”

Pete quirked a brow, looking down at him. “Who said I got you anything?”

“I’ve been good, though, Santa.” He started to kiss down Pete’s bare chest, fingers trailing along the skin at his side. Above him, Pete sucked in a breath and squirmed a little, ticklish. Even without looking up, Joe knew he was at least smiling now.

“You’re Jewish, Santa isn’t bringing you anything.”

“Santa isn’t Christian.” Joe nipped at his skin, and Pete laughed, arching up toward him. “Hanukkah sucks here anyway,” he argued. “This should be my reward.”

He was definitely smiling now. “All about the holidays, aren’t you?”

“Peeeete,” he whined. “I’ve been so good.”

“I haven’t,” Pete whispered back, something flashing across his face, but Joe kept up the smile on his own more so out of habit than real emotion. When Joe refused to give him the reaction he wanted, he relented and rolled his eyes, reaching under the bed for the wrapped package Joe had seen a week before anyway. But he hadn’t opened it, which was an improvement over some holidays. “Here. Just for you.”

Joe batted his eyes. “You shouldn’t have.”

He tore at the wrapping paper, ripping cute little snowmen in half as he struggled to get the package open. Under the paper was just another round of wrapping paper, this one with Snoopy in a Santa hat on it. Under that was another, with pink Christmas trees that sparkled in the light. “I never did like Russian dolls,” he muttered, but Pete laughed and pushed him a little.

“Last one, I swear.”

And sure enough, it was. Joe tore at the last bit of wrapping paper to reveal… a photo. Of a shiny black guitar that looked very much like the one he’d owned in college, but hadn’t replaced since a very bad accident involving his roommate and a car. Still, it was a photo. “It’s… glossy?”

Pete snorted, pushing him with his foot. “It’s downstairs, you idiot.”

Joe’s eyes got wide before he broke into a full grin and jumped off the bed, sprinting down the stairs. Pete’s laughter echoed in the hallways as he followed him down, their socked feet slip-sliding across wooden floors.

But there under the Christmas tree was an exact copy of the guitar he’d owned in college, back when he was just in some shit band that played the local bars to drunken students who usually didn’t care. He missed those days more than anything sometimes.

“You are _awesome_ ,” Joe whispered some fifteen minutes later of turning it over in his hands and strumming his fingers over the strings, a little rusty but still remembering most of the Black Sabbath song he tried out.

Pete nodded solemnly. “When I want to be. You like it?”

“You know I do.”

Petee grinned again, tilting his head. “So where’s _my_ gift?”

“Uh.” Joe thought nervously to the DVD box set waiting in the closet. “Maybe I’ll get you something better.”

“I’m sure it’s fine.” He hopped over the back of the sofa, settling in beside Joe though being careful not to jostle the guitar. Joe kind of loved him for that.

He hummed to himself, playing a few chords of some song he’d long since forgotten the name to.

“I kissed Patrick,” he said suddenly, all in a rush, the words tumbling over themselves so that it barely even sounded like syllables. Just noise to Joe’s ears. His fingers paused, stuck forming B minor, as he thought about it. Beside him, Pete’s chest was rising and falling in an uneven motion and his breathing seemed to fill the whole room.

“Okay,” Joe answered slowly.

Pete narrowed his eyes a little. “Okay what?”

He shrugged, setting the guitar down carefully on the floor. “You can kiss who you want and so can I, right? That’s the deal?” It wasn’t, exactly. There were other rules, but they’d always been flexible, and stupid, and mostly ignored as it was rare they ever turned toward anyone else. They’d been Pete’s rules at a time when they both needed some sort of foundation, anything to hold onto. They were outdated and they both knew it, but Joe wasn’t giving in this easily. Especially when this might just be the opportunity he was looking for.

“I want to do more than kiss him,” Pete said quietly, and he looked just as scared as Joe felt. “I don’t… I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s not like it’s some big secret that you like him,” he explained, and Pete looked guilty, but there was no need. They never really discussed the way Pete stared openly at him or talked about him all the time, or the way Joe made sure not to ask what Pete did in town while Joe was in the city picking up supplies. It was better not to question sometimes. “Do you still love me?”

“Yes,” Pete whispered, leaning in to kiss him, hard. They stayed like that for awhile until Pete pulled back, practically shaking. “I love you so much. I just… I don’t… He’s Patrick.”

Joe looked down at the guitar by his feet, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. “Okay,” he said eventually, wrapping an arm tightly around Pete. “I’ve got something I need to tell you too.”

Pete tensed beside him, and Joe wanted to reach out and touch him more, but he fiddled with the guitar pick in his hands instead. “I… I applied for a research grant. In Chile.”

“What’s in Chile?”

“Penguins,” Joe said slowly, and he could see realization dawning on Pete’s face. He’d brought it up some time ago, but Pete had never seemed that interested. Joe needed to get out of Ireland, though. Ireland made him feel claustrophobic sometimes, and they’d agreed when he’d arrived that they’d only stay for a few years and then get out. “It’s just for the spring. And I haven’t told them yes yet.’

Pete folded his arms across his chest. “You have to go.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Joe said, but he shrugged. “I kind of want to, though. Just… see if I still like it.”

They both had guilt issues about that last semester in school, when Pete had let it slip that he and Joe were dating, and they’d both been thrown out. He’d been so torn apart with guilt that he’d run away, and it had taken Joe four months to track him to the middle of nowhere town in Ireland, where Pete had screamed at him that he should have been back in some other school, getting his degree. Joe didn’t want a degree. He wanted Pete.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t miss something other than whales and seals.

“You’re going,” Pete whispered, much more firm, and Joe didn’t argue. Secretly, he knew even if Pete had asked him not to go, he still would have.

“I’m going,” Joe answered, and Pete actually looked relieved. “And I think while I’m gone, we should take a break. Let it be a fresh start for both of us, and when I come back… We see where we want to be.”

Pete looked like he wanted to protest, but he only stared down at the floor and nodded. It was logical, Joe told himself. And better than calling home to have someone else answer the phone.

“It’ll all be okay,” he said quietly, wrapping his arms tightly around Pete, who slowly started to relax against him. “Consider it a Christmas present, if you want. Then I can return the Monty Python and get my money back.”

There was the smallest of smiles on Pete’s face, but it was still there. “Can I keep the Monty Python anyway?”

Joe sighed dramatically. “I suppose.”

He had no way to prove that things would work out, or even to know it. Their life was fragile enough as it was, but as Hemingway trotted down from the bedroom upstairs to see what was taking them so long and Gabe startled them both when he stumbled in from the kitchen, Pete smiled properly when Joe kissed him again.

\---

It was late on Christmas Day when Jon took the boat - and Patrick - back to the mainland.

Ryan and Spencer remained safely inside, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the glow of the Christmas tree lights. Ryan told Jon to drop by again when he got back so could collect his present. Spencer suppressed a grin, but managed to invite him to stay for a movie and some hot chocolate too.

Patrick stayed huddled close to Jon as they set off, shivering in his coat and wishing not for the first time that he'd simply taken Ryland's key and walked the long distance back home to his bed the evening before.

Jon tried his best to keep Patrick's spirits up, insisting that Christmas Day was a time for peace and joy and Christmas carols sung loud for all to hear. “You stole that from Elf,” Patrick argued, but after the first verse of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Patrick joined in and they spent the boat ride taking turns to choose songs, sometimes overriding each other midway through.

As they approached the dock, Patrick could make out three figures, pacing up and down impatiently. One was obviously Gabe, waiting no doubt for his boat to be returned and another was Brendon, who hadn’t gone back with them the night before. The last was...

"Pete," Patrick sighed, his heart clenching with a sick, nervous dread.

"Patrick, it's Christmas," Jon said as though that made any difference to Patrick's inner turmoil. "It'll be okay."

Once the boat had moored and Christmas wishes had been exchanged between all five men, Patrick clambered quickly out of the boat and Gabe jumped easily down next to Jon, helping Brendon down after.

"See you in a couple of days Patrick," Jon called out as the boat started up again. "Merry Christmas."

Patrick waved him off, unable and unwilling to look at Pete who had been staring at him since he stepped ashore.

"Patrick?" Pete said at length. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you too." Patrick managed to glance at Pete as he began to walk up the path towards the guest house. It was a good five miles, but he could do it. At least it wasn’t snowing.

"Wait," Pete stopped him, grabbing his arm. "We need to talk."

"No, we don't," Patrick protested quietly. "There's nothing to talk about." He continued walking, but Pete followed.

"Look, I have to tell you something. You don’t have to actually participate in this conversation, but as… as your boss, you have to listen to me."

Pete paused as though he expected Patrick to respond.

Patrick didn't. And he also thoroughly doubted whatever Pete had to say would relate in any way to their work.

Pete fidgeted nervously, pacing back and forth beside him on the dock. "I like you,” he said after a moment, and Patrick almost felt bad for the way his voice shook on the end. “I like you a lot. I've liked you from the first moment you got here when you didn't know anything and had no idea what you'd gotten yourself into. I think about you all the time. I barely think of anything else. I go to sleep and you're there. I wake up and you're there. And the worst part is, that's exactly where I want you to be."

Patrick felt like his heart might beat out of his chest at any moment, but it sunk just as quickly. Joe was still there, and Patrick wasn’t about to try and take anything away from him.

He turned to face Pete so suddenly it caught Pete off guard and he stumbled.

They both reached for each other for balance and started to laugh. Patrick groaned.

"It's not fair. It's really not fair for you to say stuff like that to me."

"It's the truth."

"I believe you. But it doesn't make any difference."

Pete sighed. "Because you don't feel the same."

Patrick laughed. "No Pete. No. Because I do feel the same. But you have Joe. And everyone keeps telling me that you two aren’t exclusive or whatever, but you live with him. You have a dog with him. You run a business with him. All of that means long term relationship already, and he would hate me if he knew you were saying any of this.”

“He gave me permission earlier!” Pete was back to pacing, but his eyes were trained on Patrick this time, who mostly felt confused.

“What does that even mean?” He reached out a hand to stop Pete, the back and forth was making him dizzy.

Slowly, Pete came to a stop in front of Patrick, shoving his hands into his pockets. “He’s going to Chile for three months. In the spring. And… and he said we could try.”

Patrick sighed, running through the excuses in his head. “What happens when he comes back?”

“I don’t know. But… can’t we just figure it out when he comes back? Can’t we just enjoy the spring?”

“The spring is still a few months away, Pete.”

Pete nodded, hesitating. “I know. Can’t you just think about it?”

Everything about the situation seemed wrong. He wanted to tell Pete that it was crazy to think it would make any sort of a difference in three months, and that it was only going to hurt more when Joe did come back. But despite all of that, he nodded slowly, and Pete stopped, surprised.

“Really?”

“I’ll think about it,” Patrick promised, and Pete grinned so wide at him Patrick thought it must have hurt. He didn’t want to, but Patrick found himself smiling back.

\--- 

To Patrick’s relief, Joe was all smiles the next day they were at work. It had been over a week since he’d seen either of them, choosing instead to stay in the bed and breakfast with Ryland and Alex until the holidays were over, working on his research and offering to analyze some of Andy’s data sheets that he mailed over.

He’d been worried after his conversation with Pete things would be awkward. But it seemed nothing at all had changed, and even if Pete fixed him with a long stare when they met on the dock that morning, no one said anything out of the ordinary. It was just another day, and the nerves that had been playing at Patrick’s thoughts all week slowly started to settle.

The only thing different, really, was Joe’s level of excitement. He chattered on happily, first about their New Year’s, and then about all the cool things to do in Chile.

“I can’t believe you’re going all the way to Chile for three months,” Patrick laughed, watching Joe run up and down the deck, sliding against the wet floor from where the rain had left small puddles on their boat.

“You’ll survive. Besides, they have llamas!” he said, wide-eyed and bouncing around. Pete glanced at him and smiled, but he’d remained mostly silent since the line of conversation had changed.

“That’s awesome,” Patrick nodded, smiling for Joe.

“And,” he carried on, not really caring if anyone was paying any attention at all, “I don’t have to deal with the stupid fish anymore!”

“They aren’t stupid,” Pete argued from inside the boat, turning to look back at him. “And whales are not fish, they are _mammals_. You know that.”

Joe made a face at him and muttered, too low for Pete to hear, “They’re still stupid.”

Beside him, Patrick started to laugh. “Aren’t you in the wrong profession, then?”

“I’m not in a profession,” Joe said lightly, looking out over the water. His smile was still there, but it was waning. “A profession is something you get a degree for. I dropped out.”

Patrick considered this for a moment. “What were you studying when you were in school, then?”

“Marine biology.”

He started to laugh again, and Joe frowned, offended. “What is so wrong with fish, then?”

“I wasn’t studying fish,” Joe argued, crossing his arms. “Well, I was, because you kind of have to, but I liked penguins.”

“He wanted to go to Antarctica,” Pete piped up from behind them, and Joe smiled, shrugged.

“It would have been cold. But I always liked the penguins at Lincoln Park Zoo the best.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes at Joe. “You’re the kid.”

It was Joe’s turn to laugh, startled. “What kid?” 

He waved his hand, trying to come up with the right words. Patrick never was very good with words. “The kid from Chicago, the one that Pete met. At college.”

Joe turned around to glare at Pete, making rude hand gestures. “I hate when you tell that fucking story!” He turned back to Patrick, shoulders still hunched and looking sour. “I don’t care what he says, I didn’t throw up on his shoes.”

“You did!” Pete snapped, then paused. “I didn’t tell him about that part, though.”

They were eyeing each other with that look that Patrick never could quite place, and eventually, Joe started to smile.

“You so threw up on my shoes.” Pete said again, matching his grin.

“I did not! I threw up in the sink like a good little guest.”

“The first time,” Pete muttered darkly, and Joe threw the binoculars, the only thing on hand, in Pete’s general direction. They missed entirely.

\---

The last humpback whale of the winter had left, long after the rest of the whales and dolphins, and Pete seemed sadder than usual that day. They spent most of the morning trying to find her, as she’d been getting further and further away from the bay each day and they were tracking her distance, but today, she was nowhere on their radar and they’d circled the bay twice.

“She’ll be back by July,” Joe said, giving his shoulder a light squeeze before resting his chin on it.

Pete nodded and killed the engine, letting the catamaran drift aimlessly for a few hours while Joe and Patrick sat on the deck, laptops out and matching photos of dolphins together during the first sunny day they’d seen in weeks. Pete stayed inside the wheelhouse except for when he brought them coffee.

“He gets like this,” Joe whispered, pondering over two shots of a Shannon Dolphin, trying to find anything that might set them apart. Patrick glanced up from his own photos, but kept quiet. “He just has to wind himself down. He’ll be smiling by the time we get back to shore. You should know that.”

Patrick opened his mouth to question, but Joe started humming a Metallica song, and it was clear the conversation was over.

\---

Pete pulled out all the stops for Joe’s going away party. There seemed to be even more people than there had been at Christmas, which made Patrick feel more dizzy and off balance as he worked his way through the small living room of their house, trying to make his way to the drinks table.

He already felt sick to his stomach. He’d agreed to give Pete an answer about them being anything more than friends once Joe left, but the date had always been looming somewhere in the distance. Now, though, the first day of spring was two days away, and Joe’s 6 am flight out of Ireland meant there were only a few more hours to actually come to a decision.

If Pete was worried at all, it didn’t show. He’d hung banners up all over the place, mostly decorated with bright, showy flowers that resembled Hawaii more than cold Chile. But Joe had laughed as Pete put a lei around his neck, politely declining the coconut bra until they were alone.

Greta showed up a little later than the others, but her presence was marked with loud cheers as she carried in the cake, cut and decorated to resemble a penguin. She’d kissed Joe’s cheek, and they’d both blushed and tried to laugh it off as she set the cake down, making him promise not to let Pete eat all of it. “It’s yours,” she said firmly, placing a plastic knife in Joe’s open palm. “I know you like penguins, so… I thought it was the least I could do.”

“I like penguins,” Joe repeated, dumbly, but she kept smiling.

Patrick was used to it all by now. Very little could surprise him, including the way Gabe was sitting between Alex and Ryland who were almost always connected at more than just the hip. He still must have been staring, though, as Spencer nudged his shoulder when he approached.

“Gabe frightens me too,” Spencer said, not looking up now as he mixed his drink.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone frightens Gabe.” To his surprise, Spencer smiled at that, and handed the first drink he’d mixed to Patrick before starting on his own. “You seem… happy,” Patrick said slowly, careful.

“Maybe I am.”

Patrick’s gaze flickered around the room, moving across the hoards of people until they landed on Jon Walker, who was leaning against a wall and seeming just as happy and content as Spencer was. Patrick nodded.

“Good for you. For both of you.” They’d never had a real conversation about the two of them, because Spencer didn’t seem to want to, but it was obvious when anytime anyone mentioned Jon’s name he turned an unsightly shade of red, or that every date night, mostly all Spencer could find to talk about was photography or Jon. He’d even taken to carrying one of Jon’s old cameras around.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Spencer answered, sipping from his drink. It might have been more convincing if he’d been able to stop grinning.

\---

Patrick found a semi-quiet place on the stairs where he could watch the party in progress and take in the way Pete was bound and determined to get Joe to do the hula with him. He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he could see the way Ryan’s depression seemed completely un-phased by Jon and Spencer’s matching smiles, Jon’s hand reaching out for Spencer’s every few minutes until Spencer would poke his side, hard.

He even saw Brendon watching him from his corner before he stood and moved to sit beside Patrick. “Hey,” he said quietly, and Patrick smiled brightly at him, a little surprised.

“I haven’t seen you in awhile.”

Brendon nodded and seemed to search his mind for some sort of an excuse, but he came up empty handed. He smiled sheepishly instead and shrugged. “It’s been a bad few months.”

Patrick nodded and bumped their shoulders lightly. He’d seen Brendon around occasionally, sometimes in town buying supplies from Greta or at a few of Pete’s random theme parties, but they hadn’t really spoken since that first Date Night. He was surprised Brendon had even approached him this time. “You want to talk about it?”

Brendon’s face twisted, even though Patrick suspected he really did want to talk. He shrugged again. “Not much to say.”

“Well, if you change your mind…”

Brendon seemed to relax at that, sipping his beer and considering. “I don’t get why Joe’s leaving,” he said finally.

“Penguins. Llamas. Spanish women,” Patrick said, then started to laugh. “I don’t know.”

“But, Ireland is amazing. He gets to ride on a boat all day and do what he wants and he gets paid for it and he’s good at it. Tourists are always talking about how fun their tours are.”

“It’s not really what he wants to do, though.” Really, Patrick hadn’t thought much about it. What he’d pieced together of any sort of a rationale for either Pete or Joe was fragmented at best, but it seemed Joe was sincere in his desire to go to Chile.

Brendon sighed and rested his chin on his knees. “I guess,” he said, watching the party going on below them for a few minutes. “I’m sorry I stopped speaking to you,” he said suddenly, turning to look at Patrick with wide, frightened eyes. “I’m really sorry.”

Patrick frowned, reaching out to rest a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Hey,” he said quietly, “no one’s mad at you.”

“Ryan is,” he answered quickly before ducking his head. “Ryan won’t talk to me. And it _sucks_. He used to be my friend.”

“Ryan’s still your friend.” He tried to remember the last time Ryan had talked about Brendon, though, and nothing immediately sprang to mind. His stomach twisted a little.

“He’s not,” Brendon whispered, sad. “I have no one to talk to anymore. And I can’t blame them. I messed up. Ryan asked me if I liked him, and I said no, but I do, Patrick. I really do. I just didn’t want him to not be my friend anymore, but he’s not anyway.” He looked miserable, and Patrick reached out to pull him into a light hug, rubbing his back.

“I’ll talk to him,” Patrick promised, and Brendon leaned heavier into him.

\---

“You’re going to have fun,” Pete hummed against Joe’s ear where he had him pressed up against a wall, one hand sliding under his shirt. Joe laughed, a little drunk already, and tilted his head back.

“Penguins,” he giggled, reaching to thread his fingers through Pete’s hair. “Of course I’m going to have fun.”

Pete pressed their foreheads together, sticky with sweat from the rush of dozens of bodies everywhere. It reminded Joe of clubs in Chicago, and he arched forward instinctively, rolling his hips against Pete’s in the way that had always left him begging for more when they were younger. It gave him a wicked thrill to know these days it still left Pete with pretty much the same facial reaction. “Just don’t have too much fun without me,” he murmured, voice low and thick against Joe’s ear.

He shook his head slowly. “Wouldn’t dream of it. But what about you? You’re going to be getting it on with our deckhand.”

Something pained flashed in Pete’s expression, but Joe was too happy and buzzed tonight to care. It was the truth, nothing more and nothing less.

“If you tell me not to, I won’t.” It almost broke Joe’s heart how sincere he sounded, but he laughed it off, turning his head to kiss Pete slowly.

“You wouldn’t last. And it’s okay.” He flashed a smile, feeling much better about the situation than even he had thought he would. “So long as you don’t give him the dog or my spot in the bed come May, you can do whatever you want.” Joe reached out to poke at Pete’s nose, pleased he wasn’t so drunk that his aim slipped and he poked Pete’s eye instead. It wouldn’t have been the first time. “And so can I.”

Pete looked confused for a moment, and maybe a bit upset, but Joe wasn’t going to correct him. He’d been the one to chase Pete down, certainly, but that didn’t mean sometimes he didn’t wish for something else, just for a little bit. If Joe needed to move to another continent for a few months, then maybe Pete really did need to get it on with the deckhand. Joe wasn’t one to judge.

“I want to dance,” he announced, and Pete was smiling again, pulling him toward the dance floor. They only had a few hours left, and Joe had no intention of spending it discussing anything that wasn’t happy.

\---

The party wound down around three, when Gabe announced he was either going to spend the night with Ryland and Alex, or take the boat and its passengers back. They took a vote, and apart from Ryland and Alex, it was unanimous. Patrick had hugged Spencer, Jon and Ryan goodbye, spending a bit more time with Brendon to calm him down before the long ride back and promising again that he’d talk to Ryan.

Once they were gone, everyone else started to thin out. In the end, Joe and Pete disappeared upstairs for the better part of an hour, and downstairs it was just Patrick, Greta and a very drunk and confused Travis, who kept insisting on showing them magic tricks that mostly seemed to involve lighting various things on fire. Greta was eyeing him particularly warily.

“Watch this one!” Travis grabbed one of Patrick’s shoes from where he’d taken them off earlier, and he reached quickly to save it, but Greta was faster, plucking it from Travis’ hands so quickly that once the lighter was lit, Travis stared at his empty hand for a moment wondering why nothing was catching on fire.

“No more tricks,” Greta begged, and Patrick quickly put his shoes back on, smiling thankfully at Greta.

Joe and Pete chose then to wander downstairs, looking pleased with themselves. Patrick rolled his eyes and Greta sighed quietly beside them, but she stood up and moved to pick up a book from the shelf, shoving it into Joe’s bag at the bottom of the stairs. “You’ll get bored on the flight, and I know you won’t sleep,” she explained, fidgeting anxiously.

Joe was grinning at her. “You’re kind of awesome.”

She returned his smile until Pete cleared his throat, and then she turned to begin fussing about the living room, cleaning it up. Patrick felt awkward just sitting there, so he stood and began to help her, tossing empty bottles into the garbage.

“Here,” Joe said, shoving the bag at Pete. “You get me for another hour and a half to the airport. Shoo.”

Pete looked mildly offended, but only for a moment and then he was shrugging it off, moving outside to give Joe some time. Greta and Patrick continued to clean the living room, occasionally taking things from Travis’ loose grasp, while Joe woke Hemmy from the corner he’d passed out in and whispered goodbyes for a few minutes.

When he was done, he stepped over to Patrick. “Take care of him, okay?” he asked, and it took a moment to realize he didn’t mean the dog. Patrick held his breath, waiting for something more, but Joe’s lopsided smile remained firmly in place. “It’s okay, really,” he swore, and kissed Patrick’s forehead once before moving on to Greta, who was still trying to distract herself by straightening furniture and emptying glasses.

“Hi.”

“I think you mean bye,” Greta answered, not lifting her eyes.

Joe laughed and shook his head. “I mean hi. And if you ever want a vacation, I know an awesome place in Chile you can visit.” This time, her gaze did lift as she looked him over, skeptical.

“I just might,” she answered slowly, and Patrick hadn’t thought it was possible for Joe’s smile to get any wider, but it did.

“I have a plane to catch,” he announced proudly, pulling her into a tight hug and kissing her, longer than seemed polite, before grabbing his bag and hurrying out. Patrick watched him go, standing silent in the moments that stretched out after.

“This town,” he said slowly, “do they put something in the water here?”

Greta laughed beside him, startled. “You’d know better than I would.”

 

****

Spring

_Joe sat on the counter, taking long, leisurely sips from his beer as he watched Pete pacing back and forth, on the phone to the Chinese place down the street. They could have walked, it was only a few blocks and the Chicago winter had finally evaporated with the last bout of snow, leaving a decent temperature in its wake. But they were lazy, and that would have meant having to find where they’d thrown Pete’s jeans, so take out was clearly the way to go._

_“One order of General Tso’s chicken for you, and a bunch of other crap,” Pete said, tossing his cell phone onto the counter where it clattered and slid across the cold countertop. Joe poked at it, but it gave him no sign of life._

_“You should take better care of your stuff,” Joe said._

_Pete shrugged, hoisting himself up onto the counter beside Joe and letting their socked feet touch. “That’s why I have you, right?”_

_“Is that why?” He remained noncommittal, because that’s what Pete usually seemed to like, but tonight Pete was laughing at that and resting his head on Joe’s shoulder, curling closer._

_“One of the reasons, anyway.”_

_“Well, it’s definitely not for my cleaning skills.”_

_When Joe had first come here, sober enough to remember much, the apartment had looked hardly lived in but surprisingly clean for Pete. He hired a maid, Joe learned. His own apartment at the time couldn’t have had the same said about it – he and his roommate were always there, and it was difficult to look up from studying long enough to take out the garbage. At least, that had been his explanation when Pete had come over once. He didn’t seem to mind the mess, even if Joe felt suddenly embarrassed, but after one of the fellow residents caught Pete sneaking out and addressed him as, “Professor Wentz, what are you doing here so late?” they’d decided to stick to Pete’s apartment. Joe had practically been living there since, and the cleanliness level had suffered for it. Pete didn’t seem to mind._

_“No,” Pete said, kissing along his neck and humming quietly, “it’s definitely not that.”_

_Sometime later, after they’d devoured most of the Chinese food and frightened the take out man by answering the door in various stages of undress (Pete in particular), they settled onto his sofa to watch whatever Friday night movie was on._

_“Are you bored?” Pete asked suddenly, somewhere between the second and third acts. Joe had to crane his head to see Pete’s face, and he wasn’t watching him at all, eyes trained on the TV._

_“This isn’t Citizen Kane or anything, but there are worse movies out there.” They’d watched a worse one on Tuesday night, actually._

_Pete sighed, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t mean… the movie. I mean, you’re young.”_

_“And you’re a grandpa? You’re only five years older than me, ass.”_

_He got a punch to the shoulder for that. “I goofed off in college, though.”_

_Joe nodded solemnly. “You still goof off in college.”_

_“You suck, can I finish my thought?”_

_“Who’s stopping you?”_

_They launched into a full-out poking war, until Joe’s side actually hurt and Pete was smiling again, pinning him to the sofa, the rest of the movie forgotten._

_“I mean,” Pete said, gripping Joe’s wrists just a little tighter. It hurt, but it was a pleasant, dull ache that made him arch up toward Pete. “You’re always here. You never go do college-student stuff.”_

_“I study,” Joe argued. “I go to class. The rest of the experience is personal preference. And if I want to fuck my professor instead of getting drunk at a frat party, that’s my right.”_

_“But are you bored?”_

_Joe rolled his eyes and kissed him, hard, jerking his hips up toward Pete’s until there was hot friction and the pressure of Pete’s body pushing back just as hard against him. “I’m not,” he managed a few minutes later, when they finally broke for air. “Are you, though?”_

_Pete looked shaken, the cool façade slipping for a moment as he whispered, “Never,” but they didn’t talk about it. There was no need when Joe flipped them over with some effort, holding Pete down on his back as he fumbled for the lube from his jeans on the floor, Pete gripping him like he needed an anchor to keep them both from floating away._

\---

Pete didn’t call Patrick when he got back from the airport. Patrick wasn’t particularly surprised, as he hadn’t gotten to sleep in a really long time and he probably figured Patrick was passed out as well. Except that Patrick couldn’t sleep at all. He stared out his window, into the darkness that surrounded them, and watched the moon fade overhead as the sun began to rise on the horizon. It felt like the start of something bigger than he could verbalize.

\---

“We’re going to the caves,” Pete announced when he finally arrived at the dock two days later, having given them some time off to rest. He’d rang the bed and breakfast to give the message to Patrick, who had finally fallen asleep, so Ryland and Alex delivered it the next morning when he was getting ready for work. Patrick had been exhausted, so it felt nice to crawl back into bed.

But he hadn’t expected to arrive the next day to find Pete with the two kayaks he’d spent so much time finding strapped to the hood of Joe’s jeep.

“Those are not seaworthy,” Patrick argued again, crossing his arms.

Pete flashed him a grin and began to untie the ropes holding them in place. “They are,” he said, motioning for Patrick to help. “And we’re going to start giving people rides out to the caves, once we pick the best spots and ways to get there.” He pulled one down, almost getting hit in the head by its full weight. “You can kayak, right?”

Patrick hesitated. “It’s been awhile.” He had been in the kayak they used to get back to shore, certainly, but Patrick hadn’t actually paddled a kayak since he was twelve and his father had insisted on a family vacation.

Pete shrugged, pulling the ropes to get the second kayak down. “It’s like riding a bike.”

\---

Kayaking was nothing at all like riding a bike.

It was a whole different world trying to paddle the kayak by himself and not all like it had been to sit squished between Joe and Pete, letting them do all the work. He almost felt bad, but after the third time he’d tipped the kayak over and come up spluttering water beside the boat, he stopped feeling bad and started getting annoyed. He fished his hat from where it lay floating beside him.

“We’ll just take one,” Pete called from the boat where he stood laughing, clutching his side from where he’d bent over from laughing too hard.

Patrick flushed red but he climbed the ladder to the deck of the boat, dripping water all over the floor as Pete climbed down first, holding onto the ladder to wait for Patrick to climb back down and join him now that Pete was holding them steady. At least this time they didn’t fall into the water. “Just try not to knock us over in the middle of the ocean,” Pete said, but he was grinning.

“I told you this was a stupid idea!”

“You won’t be saying that in an hour,” Pete laughed, lowering his paddle into the water, and they were off.

And as much as Patrick felt unsteady in the kayak, it was a different world. He’d never been this close to the water here, and most of the wildlife that shied away from the catamaran didn’t seem to mind the kayak and Pete’s lazy, slow pace. Patrick tried to paddle with him, but he splashed more water than he propelled them forward, and after scaring away some fish, he mostly gave up.

It wasn’t sunny, because it never really was, but it was clear enough to see the water pretty clearly. “There’s some sunfish,” Pete explained, slowing his strokes. Patrick turned his head to see, and sure enough, a small group of fish that looked like baby sharks with their fins sticking out of the water were circling nearby, curious.

“They’re huge,” Patrick whispered, and Pete laughed. The biggest one looked to be about 5 feet long, but there were other, smaller ones, and they all seemed to be staring at the boat. Some even turned onto their sides, getting a better glimpse of them.

“They’re not afraid,” Pete said, tilting his head to the side. “But you better hope they don’t get too curious around the boat.”

The sunfish got bored after a few minutes, swimming away from the surface and out of sight. Pete began his slow paddle strokes again, and this time, Patrick tried to help once more. “You’re doing it wrong,” Pete commented, flashing him a grin, but he offered no pointers on how to do any better. 

“I’m not really a boat kind of a guy,” Patrick laughed, shrugging uncertainly.

“So why marine biology? There’s plenty of other careers that don’t involve boats.”

“I like science, actually.” He paused and did something with his paddle that seemed to turn them around. Pete was laughing again, correcting their trajectory path and lifting the paddle out of Patrick’s hands to set it between them. Patrick shook his head, amused. “And animals. I really love animals.”

“So why aren’t you running some zoo? Or training circus lions? Or saving monkeys in the Congo?”

“Zoos are sad,” Patrick said, adjusting his glasses. “So are circuses. I think animals should be allowed to roam free, not trapped and shown off to people or trained to do anything at all.”

“And what’s wrong with the Congo?”

Patrick laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought marine biology was more fun. I wanted to take down SeaWorld. Set all the whales and dolphins and seals free.”

Pete nodded. “Free-Willy style?”

“Maybe less jumping whales, but… yeah.”

Pete wasn’t smiling now. He was fixing Patrick with stern, hard eyes, clearly sizing up his answer. Patrick stared back, waiting. “They’re safe there, though,” he said slowly. “Out here, who knows what can happen. And I’m not talking about natural predators, that’s mother nature. But the Japanese eat dolphins and whales. You ever seen a Japanese whale boat?” He hadn’t, but he’d heard stories, had seen the pictures of coves painted red in blood. Judging from the way Pete was staring at him, though, he was beginning to think Pete had seen one. “Or a Peruvian boat crew hack away at a dolphin to sell in the market? Hell, even the damn British navy used sonar in some testing and confused the hell out of a pod of dolphins that ran aground. Maybe they’re better off in tanks.”

“No one’s better off in a tank,” Patrick whispered, treading lightly. “That’s not freedom. I’m not saying the ocean is safe, and people need to be stopped and educated. One bay at a time.”

Pete leaned back, looking tired, but he nodded. “You’ll make a good conservationist.”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To protect them?”

“I’m here because I’m a coward, and there’s no real danger here. If I get to change a few people’s minds from my safety net, so be it.”

Patrick didn’t buy it, but he didn’t press it, either.

\---

Their moods were better by the time they hit the caves. They’d seen some leatherback turtles, that moved faster than their kayak and made Patrick giggle because really, they’d been at this forever now, and they still had to make it back to the boat later. “And you want to do this with customers?” Patrick laughed, leaning his head back.

Pete splashed water at him. “Shut up, it would be good money. And now we know to anchor the boat closer to the caves!”

They both had to paddle to get inside the cave, even though Patrick warned there might be sharp rocks close to the surface of the water. “Calm down,” Pete laughed, maneuvering them further into the darkness. “What’s the worst that happens, we sink? It might actually be faster to swim back.”

He had a point.

The cave smelled musky and old, but just enough of the sunlight filtered in from the opening of the cave to paint the water crystal blue, even as it got darker and darker the further in they went. Even though the water was calm, everything sounded louder here – each dip of the paddle into the water echoed, and Patrick gazed around, feeling dizzy with excitement. He’d never experienced something like this.

“You still think customers wouldn’t like this?” Pete asked, and when Patrick went to look at him, he could barely make out his outline. He squinted in the dark, but it wasn’t much better.

“You’re an asshole.”

He could barely see white teeth in the darkness, but he could definitely hear Pete’s quiet laughter, reverberating off the closing walls. “I told you it was cool.”

“It is,” Patrick sighed, dipping a hand into the water. It was colder here than outside, due to the lack of sun, and it made him shiver.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to call,” Pete said suddenly, and Patrick really wished he could see him. But instead, he kept quiet, letting Pete continue. “It’s weird. Him not being here. You being down the road.”

“Good weird? Bad weird?”

“I don’t know,” Pete admitted after a moment, sounding nervous. “Just weird. I miss him. And I really, really have been wanting to do this.” He suspected before it happened, but it still caught Patrick off guard to have Pete suddenly there, leaning forward to kiss him. He couldn’t see anything, still, so closing his eyes didn’t make much of a difference, but he still did as he relaxed. Pete’s lips ghosted over his, tentative at first but growing bolder. Patrick wanted to press closer, but he hadn’t lost the memory of falling out of the kayak so many times earlier, so he fought to stay still, just enjoying the sensation.

“I really like you,” Pete whispered a moment later, and Patrick smiled, pleased he was still close enough to press their foreheads together.

“I really like you too.”

They kissed again, Patrick still fighting against every nerve in his body that wanted to press forward more. Pete didn’t seem as concerned, until the boat rocked precariously, and then they parted, staring at each other’s dim outlines in the darkness. “We should go,” Pete said.

Patrick turned his head to look at the entrance of the cave, which was still light and almost-sunny. He nodded slowly. “But maybe we can have dinner. Alex is an awesome cook.”

“Don’t trust my cooking?”

Patrick laughed suddenly and the walls around them seemed to shake with the sound. Soon, they were both laughing, the sound carrying on even after they’d made it back out into the light, their eyes adjusting to find the other one looking as happy and nervous as they each felt.

\---

After three days of busy tours, including one with ten small children, Patrick needed a break. He and Pete flirted every time the opportunity arose to make inappropriate comments on the boat, but by the end of each day they had no energy to do anything more than ride back into town in companionable silence.

Tuesday, their weekly day off, was the one bright spot on the horizon. Pete kept hinting he had plans, but wouldn’t say anything more. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because when Pete pulled up to the B&B an hour earlier than he’d said, honking the Jeep’s horn, Patrick knew something was up.

“The Harbour Seals are hauling out to give birth,” Pete said as Patrick climbed into the car, his shirt only halfway buttoned in his haste to hurry down the stairs. His plan at taking a nice long, leisurely shower had been shot to hell.

“Okay,” Patrick nodded.

“No, it’s awesome! Ryan just called me. We’re going to Sherkin and bringing the bigger telescopes.” He tapped his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel, heading out toward the boat. “One already had birth, but there’s a few more pregnant females sitting on shore that we think might go ahead today.”

Patrick smiled and hoped he didn’t look too disappointed.

\---

By the time they reached Ryan and Spencer, dragging the huge telescopes on their backs and Patrick struggling to keep up with Pete’s half-sprint, Patrick had given up altogether on this being a date.

“Come on!” Ryan shouted, standing up from his position on the hill leading down to the shore, hands on his hips as we watched them approach. “You’ve already missed most of it.”

Pete flipped him off and dropped his telescope right into Spencer’s lap, not seeming to care as the younger man flopped back under the sudden weight, staring up at him from the ground with his eyes narrowed.

“Hey, Spence,” Pete nodded, helping Patrick with the other telescope. Together, they began to set it up, aiming at some rocks below where the water was calm, and Patrick could see several fat seals laying on the ground, barking. “How many so far?” Pete asked.

“Three,” Ryan said, grinning widely. “There’s still two more possibilities. I can’t tell.”

“He’s named them,” Spencer said, finally standing and dusting himself off. Patrick thought he looked pretty angry. “He named one of them Van Gogh.”

Ryan hit Spencer’s arm. “What if I did?”

“What were the other’s names?” Patrick asked, helping Spencer to stand the tall telescope upright. It teetered a little in the soft ground, but if Pete noticed his heavy equipment was in their unsteady hands, he didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy looking through his own telescope, bouncing around excitedly.

Ryan ducked his head. “John and Paul.”

“You better mean the Beatles, not the prophets,” Pete muttered darkly, and this time it was his turn to get the end of Ryan’s hand.

“The Beatles were prophets too.”

Spencer exchanged a look with Patrick, but they were both smiling.

“How do you know they’re all boys anyway?” Patrick sat down on the ground, trying to peer down at the seals without the telescopes. He could see a smaller shape near one of the seals and assumed it must have been one of the pups. It just looked like a white rock from their vantage point.

“I don’t,” Ryan admitted, straightening. “The next one will be a girl.’

“Ten bucks says he names it Emily Dickinson,” Spencer sighed, shaking his head. “Or Bronte.”

Ryan snorted, and didn’t even look embarrassed about it. “Please. Maya Angelou, maybe. Or Sylvia.”

“The Bell Jar’s too depressing for a seal,” Pete said, then shot up into a standing position. “There! I got it. Come look.”

Ryan moved before anyone else could, pressing his face against the telescope. Pete laughed, but moved to stand between Spencer and Patrick, helping to set up theirs as well.

“Take a look,” Pete said a minute later, nudging Patrick’s leg. He lowered his face, pressing his eye to the viewfinder and peering in at where it was aimed – at the so-called white rock he’d been watching earlier, which now looked very much alive. The pup was stretching and trying to move around on the rocks, its first few tentative steps in the world. The mother seemed to be watching lazily, probably tired from her ordeal.

“Which one is this one?” Patrick asked, and Ryan pushed him out of the way to look for himself.

“That’s Van Gogh,” he said after a moment, standing again. Spencer seemed to be laughing into his hand, masking it as a cough. Even Pete looked amused.

“Should have named it Warhol,” Pete whispered against Patrick’s ear, and he found himself smiling, looking back down into the telescope. The pup was flopping around near its mother, experimenting with what it could do. It grabbed hold of its mother’s fin and tried to pull on it, but the substantially larger seal didn’t even lift its head.

“The next one is Sylvia,” Ryan announced as one of the other seals laying on the rocks let out a bleat that echoed across the water.

\---

The sun had set completely by 8, and though they could hear the newborn pups splashing around near the island, it was too dark to see anything so they packed up the telescopes. “That was awesome,” Ryan whispered, still peering down into the darkness. The moonlight lit the outline of the island, but not enough to form details.

“Five babies. It was a big day,” Spencer nodded, shoving the telescope into Pete’s hands. “But our job is done now. Time for you to go home, bye bye.”

Pete laughed, easing the telescope over his shoulder. “Got a hot date, Spence?” Patrick saw something malicious flash in Pete’s eyes and Spence stuttered for a moment, but ultimately said nothing. “If you don’t,” Pete carried on, louder, “we should all get a drink.”

“Aren’t we going back?” Patrick asked, trying again not to sound too disappointed. He’d never watched seals give birth before, and while the babies were adorable and the process much less disgusting than he’d imagined, it was still their only night off for another week.

“Later,” Pete answered, still staring Spencer down. “I bet Jon’s at the Jolly Roger, let’s find out.”

“Oh good! He’ll want to see our photos of the seals!” Ryan, looking happier than Patrick had ever seen him, began marching off toward the tavern a mile back. Spencer sighed, and glared once more at Pete, but began to follow, Pete trailing behind him. Patrick continued to stand for a moment, holding the other telescope, and considering the irony of it all.

\---

Jon was indeed at the Jolly Roger, two drinks ahead of them and already laughing louder than anyone else in the pub. Ryan, surprisingly, ran over to hug him first and began talking animatedly about the seals while Jon shook with laughter and tried to catch up. Spencer hung up near Patrick, watching as Pete attempted to mediate the conversation and fill in Ryan’s gaps.

“This was supposed to be a date,” Patrick said slowly, not even caring if Spencer wasn’t listening. But he was.

“This wasn’t supposed to be.” He was staring at Jon, who kept looking back and smiling too wide, which caused him not to listen to parts of Ryan’s story and more mass confusion ensued.

Spencer tried to motion for him to stop, but Jon just kept grinning at him from across the room. 

“How are you two?” Patrick asked, quietly, once they’d made their way to the bar. He ordered a beer, and watched as Spencer ordered a shot, downing it before motioning for something else to drink.

“Good.”

Patrick eyed the empty shot glass. “Looks that way.”

Spencer pinched the bridge of his nose, deflating. “I think I love him. But we leave in three months, so what does it matter?”

“He’s from Chicago, though. That’s how he and Joe know each other, isn’t it?” He glanced once at Jon, who was now trying to pay attention to Ryan but still failing at following along. Pete and Ryan were both red with laughter, shaking their heads. “Surely if he feels the same, he’d come back to the states with you.”

“This isn’t the movies,” Spencer sighed, downing his other shot. This time, he ordered a real drink. “Things don’t work like that, Patrick. Is this your idea of a fairy tale date?”

Patrick shook his head slowly.

“So whatever. We get another three months, and then it’s back to reality.” With that, Spencer stalked away, placing himself firmly in a corner with his drink and watching out the window.

\---

“I hear there were seals,” Jon said once they were all seated, lazy smile as he swayed between Spencer and Patrick.

“I’ve heard enough about seals,” Spencer said, pushing him off. “And you’re drunk.”

Jon laughed and shook his head slowly. “You’ve never seen me really drunk.” He leaned closer, and Ryan was watching them with amused curiosity, especially when Spencer pushed him harder.

“Well, I say Jon has the right idea.” Pete motioned for a waiter, getting a round for the table. Jon clapped in enthusiasm at this idea, and Ryan nodded thoughtfully, but the rest of the table seemed less than amused.

“Can’t we just all go home?” Spencer sighed.

“You can come to my home anytime.” Patrick wasn’t sure how he kept doing it, but Jon was invading Spencer’s personal space again, all smiles and red nose brushing Spencer’s cheek. For his part, Patrick considered it a smart move that Spencer didn’t punch him, but he could see his fingers itching to ball into a fist. Jon tumbled back against Patrick at the next shove. “Never any fun, Spencer Smith,” he sighed.

“He’s fun,” Ryan argued, but then Pete was reeling him back in to whisper some joke into his ear.

Patrick gripped the table and wished he could disappear. “How’s the gallery?” he asked suddenly, turning on Jon. It took a moment for his words to register, but then Jon was smiling and nodding.

“Well, it’s closed now,” he laughed, untangling himself from Spencer long enough to give Patrick a thoughtful look. “But we’re getting ready for opening season. Bringing in some new talent.”

“Is Brendon going to be there?”

This time, it was Pete’s turn to look distressed. Patrick would have laughed at it all if he were more drunk, but as it stood, he kept watching Jon, waiting.

Jon nodded. “They brought in some of his new stuff. He really improved over the winter.”

“We should go see the gallery together,” Patrick continued, this time turning to Ryan. “How is he, anyway?”

Ryan ducked his head, staring hard at the grain of the table. He shrugged his shoulders a little helplessly, and Patrick could feel Pete’s eyes on him, sizing him up, but no one spoke until the waitress returned and Pete ordered another stronger round for the table.

“Maybe we should just go?” Patrick asked after a moment, once the drinks were consumed and the conversations had paired off again. He looked hopefully at Pete, who was wrapped around Ryan and laughing at some private joke. Spencer even looked annoyed, and this time he let Jon’s hand linger over his for longer than usual.

Patrick closed his eyes, taking a long sip of his beer. “Or not,” he said to absolutely no one in particular.

\---

Pete was too drunk to drive himself or the boat back home, so Patrick had to maneuver the catamaran out of the dock, Pete shouting instructions at him while simultaneously singing an almost unrecognizable Green Day song at him.

By the time they got back to Rean Pier, Patrick wanted to throw him off the boat. “Let’s swim!” Pete laughed, already halfway over the side before Patrick grabbed his shirt, dragging him back on board.

“No,” he hissed. “We’re already at the dock. Just get out.”

Pete eyed the distance between the boat and the dock. “If this is your idea of close parking…” He attempted to whistle, but mostly only air came out. Patrick shoved him, hard, but Pete seemed to get the idea and managed to jump the distance, even drunk.

“You’re maaaad,” Pete sing-songed, pulling on the handle to the Jeep. For the first time in years, Patrick had to close his eyes and mentally count to ten before finally unlocking the car and climbing in. Pete got in on the other side, quiet for once.

It wasn’t until they were almost to Pete’s house that Patrick spoke up. “This was supposed to be our first date,” he sighed, and it wasn’t fair, really, to do this now. Pete’s pupils were overblown as he stared at him in the dark, looking somewhere between sad and confused.

“Seals don’t give birth every day.”

Patrick wanted to throw something at him. “I know that,” he answered slowly, staring ahead. “But you ignored me half the night.”

“Seals,” Pete answered again, dumbly.

Patrick grit his teeth. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” he said slowly, and he could feel the anger that had been building all night rising quickly, tasting like bile in the back of his throat. “This was your whole idea. We’ve barely even seen each other outside work since Joe left. I saw more of you before he was gone, actually. And that’s fine, okay? If you didn’t want to date, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t have kissed me or pushed for this or gotten me all confused or… or… fuck you, Pete Wentz. This was your idea. If you don’t want to do it, just say it.”

But instead, Pete leaned over and kissed him, hard. The car swerved at the sudden movement and they were both knocked back, Pete left rubbing the back of his head from where it had hit the glass. They stared at each other as the car slowed to a stop in front of his house, and Pete hesitated, seeming trapped with too little time for decisions. “I’ll be better,” he said slowly, and clambered out of the car so fast Patrick began to wonder if he’d faked some of the drunkenness. He saw him stumble up his stairs, and at least knew he hadn’t faked that.

Patrick went home alone again.

\---

There was a light knocking at his door, but it felt too early, and Patrick groaned, rolling away and pulling a pillow over his head. “Hello?” Ryland called from the other side of the door before simply opening it. Patrick couldn’t even be mad – it was their house.

“What?” he sighed, pulling the pillow off enough to squint across the room at Ryland. His fingers grappled at the bedside table, fumbling for his glasses and putting them on lopsided at first. Ryland was smiling, but there was no coffee in sight, so Patrick didn’t return the sentiment.

“Pete’s downstairs,” Ryland nodded, leaning against the doorway. “He says it’s important.”

“Oh.” Most of the anger from the day before had faded away, but it still didn’t stop him from feeling a little bitter. “What, are more seals giving birth? Does he need someone to haul his telescope?”

Ryland shrugged. “He brought flowers. Is ‘hauling his telescope’ code?”

Patrick struggled to find something clever to say in his sleep-fogged brain, but by the time he had a decent comeback, Ryland was gone. Sighing, he dragged himself from the bed and threw on a pair of shoes, marching downstairs.

By the time Patrick reached the kitchen, Ryland and Alex had disappeared outside, even though Patrick could see Alex through the window, trying to watch them even as Ryland pulled him away.

Pete sat at the table, with the coffee that was rightfully Patrick’s, looking worse than Patrick felt. He almost felt bad. Almost.

“Hi,” Pete whispered, voice sounding hoarse and strained.

Patrick took the chair furthest from Pete. “Hungover?”

Pete shrugged, but took an extra long sip of his coffee. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly, and pulled the bouquet of flowers out from under the table to set them in front of Patrick. They weren’t store-bought, because Greta was the only one who occasionally kept those sorts of flowers in store here, and these lacked the pretty purple and white tissue paper she wrapped around them. Patrick thought they looked like the ones that grew down by the dock, but these were brighter and prettier. They smelled like spring. “I know it doesn’t make up for it.”

“Good, because it doesn’t.” What was left of his anger was quickly melting, though, and Patrick tried to remind himself why he’d been angry in the first place.

“Will you let me try today, though?”

Patrick sighed, looking out the window again. Alex was definitely watching them, peering in from where Ryland had pulled him off to the side. He narrowed his eyes at him, but Alex just smiled. “We have to work today,” he said after a moment, when he remembered what he was doing.

Pete shook his head quickly. “I’ll cancel the tour. It’s not a big deal. You can go back to sleep and I’ll come back later and we’ll have a proper date.”

Despite his better judgment, Patrick found himself nodding, and maybe even smiling when Pete broke out into a full grin, looking more relieved than he had in weeks. “You won’t regret this,” he swore, bouncing to his feet.

Patrick really hoped he was right.

\---

After a good ten outfit changes (“You can’t wear what you wore last night,” Alex said, frowning at him from over the top of his paper where he’d been pretending not to notice him. “Are you insane?”), Patrick felt even more self-conscious of the way his too-thin hair poked out from under his hat and stuck to his forehead, the way his stomach felt too big for the jeans Ryland had requested he wear.

“You look fine,” Ryland reassured him, tossing Patrick’s favorite tennis shoes into a corner. His fingers itched to put them back on, but he looked down forlornly at the brown shoes he hadn’t even realized he’d brought. It wasn’t the same.

Alex lightly kicked Ryland, all the while smiling at Patrick. “And if he fucks up tonight, no more fifteenth chances.”

Their concern bordered on pestering, but it was nice having two people care so much about him. He took his time reassuring them he was a grown man and could fend for himself, he promised, but it took Alex answering the door and questioning Pete about his intentions for five minutes before they even let Pete enter the Ivy League.

“I didn’t know the Spanish Inquisition moved in,” Pete murmured against his ear, suddenly close enough to make Patrick’s skin tingle and flush. “You ready?”

Alex reached out to grip Pete’s arm. “I want him back before midnight if he’s not getting lucky,” he said, but Patrick was pulling them apart and out the door before Alex expanded on that line of thought. By the time they were at the car, even Patrick was laughing a little hysterically.

“Jesus,” Pete laughed, buckling himself into the driver’s seat. “Did you tell them I beat you?”

“I told them the truth,” he admitted, and Pete had the decency to look affronted, but only before he was laughing again.

“No more talk about your crazy landlords tonight, got it?”

Patrick nodded.

With that, the car jolted forward, beginning its descent back into the town below. Patrick couldn’t ever remember having a Friday evening off that wasn’t filled with going back to the small office at the pier and printing out photos, making itineraries for the tour the next day, or counting up their earnings. Most of what he saw of the town was the late-afternoon or evening drive back up the hill, when he was too exhausted and sore to do more than stay seated upright.

He didn’t really know how he’d failed to notice how alive Union Hall suddenly was.

There were more people on the streets than Patrick had ever seen, and it was as if every resident had suddenly appeared, along with several of the summer-home early arrivals. Bob, Greta’s occasional employee at the store, had a cart set up that reminded Patrick of Chicago hot dog stands, but instead there were bite-size tapas and sandwiches, along with a mixture of drinks. The lights of the pubs filtered down into the streets, casting them with a strangely friendly glow, especially as the sounds of music filtered down the lanes.

“This,” Pete grinned, pulling the car to a stop, “isn’t Chicago, but it’s as close as we’ve got.”

Patrick considered making a detour to Bob’s stand, but a moment later the music spilling out of Scimeca’s changed, and Patrick was hurrying ahead of Pete to see if his ears were deceiving him.

“We have live bands sometimes. We’re not totally barbaric,” Pete explained when he’d finally caught up to Patrick, watching the way his eyes got wide at the vision of Nick and William standing on the karaoke stage, drums and guitar and microphone stand gripped firmly in hand. “Though tonight, it’s just them. They’re not bad, though.”

It wouldn’t have mattered if they were. Patrick hadn’t heard live music in so long that his heart clenched at the idea of the long months it had been since he’d even seen a guitar, let alone gotten to touch one. Marine biology was his first love, but if he had an affair, it was music. He’d almost forgotten how wrong the world felt when he wasn’t around it.

“Where do you want to sit?” Pete asked, leaning closer to Patrick so they could hear over the noise. There were dozens of people in the bar, which didn’t seem like many, but Scimeca’s wasn’t meant to hold large crowds. Add in that most of them were drunk, and it was almost deafening. But even then, Patrick still had room and didn’t have to, but he pressed back lightly against Pete just the same, enjoying the rush of warmth from their bodies.

“Wherever you normally sit,” he said, smiling as Pete put his hand on Patrick’s back again, leading him to a booth toward the front of the room. He slid in first, leaving Patrick with more legroom and a better view.

“I can’t believe I never knew they did this on Fridays,” Patrick laughed, looking around again. It was nothing like on Tuesday nights, when William’s drunken karaoke versions of Cure songs were no match to the way his voice was carrying out now, taking notes and crafting the into something Patrick didn’t think the usually stoned owner was capable of. “Do you come here and just not tell me?”

Pete considered for a moment, smile wider than what it usually was on the boat. “We used to, before the tours really picked up. We haven’t had time in ages. Too tired, you know?”

“I’d have come even if I was sleepwalking the rest of the week,” Patrick said, and flushed after at Pete’s amused look.

“I didn’t even know you were that big into music. It’s just William.”

Patrick nodded solemnly. “I used to go all the time back home. I played for a bit, but I wasn’t very good.”

“If you say you played guitar, we are breaking up. You sound like Joe.”

The comment should have made things awkward, but Patrick found himself laughing and settling more into the slick leather seat. “No! No, I like drums. I can play some other stuff, though.” He grinned, making a face at Pete. “Including guitar.”

“But the water world stole you away?” Pete laughed, waving his hand. “You could have been them,” he motioned to William and paused, “or something better, but you just couldn’t resist the call of the dolphins?”

Patrick twisted his face. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t going to pay the bills, and I was never good enough for it. Besides, marine biology has its perks.”

“Like me?” Pete asked, batting his eyeslashes, while Patrick laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I meant more like, I get to work with animals in a natural environment and feel like I’m making a difference. Besides, sometimes you meet interesting people. Sometimes.” He stuck his tongue out at Pete, not offering which category he thought Pete fit under, but they both already knew that. “What about you? Why marine biology?”

Pete shrugged, picking up a sugar packet from the table and opening it. He spilled it out onto the wood, feeling the way the grains felt under the tips of his fingers. “I wasn’t well suited for any real job, and let’s face it, there’s not a lot cooler than swimming with dolphins.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Patrick said, reaching over to touch one of his tiny mountains of sugar.

“You’ve never? I bet you’ve imagined it, though.” Pete didn’t even bother trying to hide his smirk, though Patrick sunk lower in his seat, tugging the collar of his shirt up higher as though it could hide the blush rising on his cheeks.

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “I feel stupid now, though!”

“Why?” Pete was grinning, white teeth flashing under the harsh lights. “I based my entire career around that dream.”

“Did it work out for you?”

Pete shrugged. “Does anything? It’s too late to change now.”

Mixon chose then to stop by their table for a short chat, asking after Andy and delivering their usual drinks. While he and Pete talked, Patrick could feel the wheels turning in his head, going over Pete’s words.

“It’s never too late to change,” Patrick said once Mixon was gone, and when he felt Pete staring him down, analyzing, added, “You can’t stay a kid forever.”

“I never said I was a kid,” Pete whispered. “Kids haven’t seen some of the things I’ve seen.” He cleared his throat, glancing back toward the stage so he didn’t have to meet Patrick’s gaze. “I don’t feel grown up either, though. I’m 27, and still feeling like I’m working a summer job.”

“I’m only 22,” Patrick said, pausing to sip from his drink. “And I know I’m not grown up, but I’m not a kid either. It’s this weird sort of limbo, isn’t it? But this is my escape.” He motioned with his head toward the stage – where another band was setting up, and Pete had to squint past layers of smoke to see. People were milling around, girls dressed in everything from short black dresses to jeans with holes from love and use, not high fashion. There was a happy buzzing around the bar, a high energy that still stirred Patrick’s bones some rainy days as he lay in bed, staring at his ceiling.

Pete smiled slowly at him, leaning against him until their shoulders touched.

“Yeah,” Pete agreed, closing his eyes. Patrick did the same, watching the way the light played on his eyelids. “This is the way to escape.”

He could feel Pete’s breath, warm and steady on his neck as the lights dimmed and another band started, soft notes rising from the stage to fill the room. “I love this,” Patrick whispered, and even if the music lacked the skill he was used to, he could sense something important was happening here. Pete nodded his agreement, humming along to tunes he didn’t know.

“I wanted to save the world too,” Pete said at length, when there were two empty glasses sitting beside them though they remained curled around one another in the booth. “Not from SeaWorld like you and Ryan, but I spent a spring break with a bunch of friends when I was 18 in Japan because we thought it would be fun.” Patrick opened his eyes to watch him, to see the way he was smiling, but it never reached his eyes. “I liked the beach, so we went there a lot. And one of the days we went, there were all these boats in the water, and I couldn’t figure out why. But we got closer, and they were driving the dolphins aground.”

Patrick reached for his hand, and Pete drew in a sharp breath. “There were hundreds of them,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “And I thought these people were standing on the beach and in the shallow water to help them, but instead they started pulling out knives and spears and stabbing them. Hundreds of them. And I just couldn’t understand how no one was helping them. They were literally tearing them apart. Painting the sea red.”

He shook his head slowly, trying to clear the memory from his head. “When I went back to school, I changed my major.”

“You do a lot of good,” Patrick whispered, stroking Pete’s back lightly as he pressed his face into Patrick’s neck, taking in deep, shallow breaths. “You and Joe both do.”

At the sound of Joe’s name, Pete seemed to relax more. Part of Patrick wanted to tell Pete that everything was okay, or that it was wrong for them to be here now without Joe, wrong for them to have thought a date was a good idea. But another part, the part that was currently being more vocal, was too fixated on the way Pete’s hand felt on the back of his neck, lighting stroking skin.

“I like Joe,” Patrick said suddenly, and Pete nodded along, sighing into his shirt.

“Me too,” he said, and this time, the smile did reach his eyes. “He’s… He’s a lot like you, I guess. He’s funny. Not my sort of funny, which is half making fun of you at the same time, but like… a dog chasing its tail, or a squirrel in a bathtub. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.”

“He’s genuine,” Patrick offered.

“He’s perfect, in a lot of ways.” Pete didn’t look at him when he spoke, purposely leaving his eyes closed. Patrick imagined it was easier on both of them not to see the emotions crossing their faces, whether it was pain or jealousy or even sympathy. Whatever it was they were doing, it was too hard to put a name to it.

“He’s great,” Patrick said, and the hand that had stilled on his neck began moving again, cautious and slow. “But why aren’t you in Chile with him right now?”

That was the question, Patrick thought. It was the thing that had been hanging between them like a shadow for weeks, even before Joe had boarded his plane.

Pete took in a deep breath, laughing brokenly. “You ever been with someone who knows you so well it becomes… redundant to even talk? It’s like marriage, except I don’t remember giving him a ring. He knows all my secrets. And I love that, I love him, but it’s like… we became this old married couple who needed and depended so much on each other, but we never wanted that. We both felt so guilty for what happened in Chicago. And everything happened so fast after that. I miss feeling like a kid, or feeling anything at all. I promised him I’d never get bored, but maybe I did.”

Patrick shook his head. “You’re not bored.”

Pete considered this, tilting his head. “I used to practically vibrate when he’d just walk into a room. But now it’s just…”

“Life,” Patrick finished, and Pete nodded. He couldn’t be certain who moved first, only that a moment later lips that tasted like vodka and something cherry-flavored were brushing against his and a spark sent a shiver down his spine as Pete’s breath hitched against his lips.

The world didn’t move in slow motion, but the hand that tangled in his hair pulled with just the right amount of pressure and when they parted briefly for breath, all he could hear in his ears was Pete’s harsh breathing, eyes still closed and clinging to Patrick like he held the answer to life.

When Pete did open his eyes to look at him, his gaze was wide and nervous. It made Patrick wonder just how often Pete had done this despite his reputation, and more importantly, what he was thinking right now. Was he regretting this night already, or wondering what might happen if his hands slid just a few inches lower to settle at Patrick’s hips.  
“Hey,” Patrick whispered, because it was the only thing he could think of to say. Pete gave him a hesitant smile and repeated the word back, a prayer.

Patrick could have done a number of things then, but all the options he weighed in his mind save one left him alone in bed that night with nothing but his thoughts and nightmares to talk to, so it was with a shaky resolve that he leaned closer to whisper in Pete’s ear, “Want to get out of here?”

Pete inhaled sharply, fingers reaching to grasp Matt’s shoulders. “I had an actual date planned,” he explained, voice slow and languid now, matching the hazy smoke around them. “I was going to take you to the lighthouse or a movie…”

“I don’t care,” Patrick admitted, standing shakily. He was never this forward, and Pete seemed to realize this as he reached for Patrick’s hand, steadying him. “I just want to go to your place.”

\---

They didn’t talk about it, but neither of them even considered going to Pete’s bedroom that he shared with Joe. Instead, after several failed attempts at unlocking the door and Patrick feeling lightheaded from the booze and the way Pete kept laughing against his ear, they stumbled in together and moved toward the guest bedroom.

Patrick had only seen the room a handful of times. Usually the door was kept closed, or used as a random storage area for odd things (he’d once seen canoes there, and the next time, a foosball table), but this time they were navigating their way past boxes and boxes of files. It would have been easier with a light on.

“Sorry about the mess,” Pete muttered. At least, Patrick assumed that’s what he said. It was difficult to tell when he wouldn’t remove his mouth from Patrick’s, one hand snaking its way under his shirt which he’d already managed to mostly unbutton on the front porch.

Pete was pressed tight against him, and when his hips jerked forward, Patrick’s felt felt the side of the bed and he was tumbling backwards, hoping he didn’t look too clumsy. Pete laughed at the sight, but only until Patrick was grabbing his arm and pulling him down beside him, whacking his shoulder.

“Shut up,” Patrick said.

“My pleasure,” Pete agreed.

Patrick’s body felt on autopilot as he sat up, hands sliding to lightly grasp at Pete’s sides. His skin felt warm to the touch, or maybe that was Patrick’s hands, and he could see Pete’s wide eyes staring at him in the darkness.

Then Pete shifted his weight until he was straddling Patrick’s hips. There were unfamiliar angles and awkward heavy breathing until they became surer of themselves, until he reached to slowly remove Patrick’s glasses and set them gingerly on the table. There was an awkward moment where Patrick tried to stop him, to still be able to see, but then Pete was laughing against his ear again. “It’s dark in here,” he whispered, and it took a moment for a words to register. It was too dark to see details, and he kind of liked the way the world got softer without his glasses, especially when the only light coming in was from the one window behind them.

He could see Pete’s face, at least, staring at him with something of a cross between nerves and hope. The look fueled Patrick onward, making him lift his hips to meet Pete’s and tugging at the thin material of Pete’s shirt.

They kissed, fingertips moving across sweaty skin and fumbling with buttons, quiet gasps filling the silence. Their foreheads knocked briefly, and they parted, each clutching their head. Patrick began to giggle softly, and it was infectious, spreading across to Pete who visibly relaxed and reached for Patrick again.

“Why do you like me?” Patrick whispered as Pete pressed him down into the mattress, sprawled out on top of him and staring at him intensely, watching the way a blush crept up Patrick’s body. He traced its ascent with a finger, humming over Patrick’s quiet voice. “I mean… why me?”

Pete traced his finger back down Patrick’s bare chest, snatching Patrick’s wrist in his free hand when he felt it twitching restlessly at his side. “Because,” Pete sighed, leaning down to brush lips against pale skin. “You’re the one who makes me vibrate when you walk into a room now.”

Patrick kissed him, shaking hands trying to find purchase on Pete’s shoulders, but Pete helped to anchor them down to the sofa, breathing quiet promises or perhaps prayers along the bare skin of Patrick’s collarbone.

He barely noticed that Pete took his shirt off until he was leaning down to swirl his tongue around Patrick’s nipple, teeth scraping and pulling, while he pressed down against Patrick and skin slid against skin.

“These need to come off,” Pete hummed against his nipple, and Patrick blinked up at him for a moment until Pete began popping buttons on his jeans, sliding his hand under layers of clothing to wrap around his already-hard cock. Patrick inhaled sharply, his mouth falling open and arching up almost embarrassingly quickly. Pete was still smiling, though, Patrick could feel it more than he can see it.

“Better,” Pete murmured, and then they were both pushing against each other, fumbling, struggling out of the rest of their clothes. It took longer for Pete to get out of his skin-tight jeans, but thankfully, he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

The first time Pete thrust back down and their cocks bumped together, Patrick’s body jerked forward, trying to get even closer. Pete just kept grinning wickedly above him, doing it again while gripping one of Patrick’s arms above his head.

“That’s good,” Patrick hissed, wrapping his one free hand to pull Pete down for a rough kiss. “But not enough.” It would have been – Patrick could already feel his muscles going taut, the need to just keep thrusting up against Pete for that friction, but he wanted more than that. Pete seemed in agreement, as although there was an agonizing moment where suddenly all that pressure was gone, he could hear Pete fumbling around in a drawer for condoms.

“Lube’s in the other room,” Pete swore, and Patrick watched as Pete fumbled with the condom wrapper, sweaty fingers dropping it twice on the bed sheets before he finally tore it open.

Patrick wanted to say it wasn’t worth it, but he hadn’t done this since Frank, and that had been over a year ago. He groaned, covering his face and gritting out the word, “Hurry.”

A few moments later, Pete slid back into the room, cursing wood floors as he hit several of the boxes, sending papers across the ground. Patrick laughed, startled, especially when Pete jumped back onto the bed and they bounced for a moment under the weight.

“You’re an idiot,” Patrick said, but he wa grinning. Pete shrugged and then nodded, but when he wrapped his hand back around Patrick’s cock, the humor was all gone.

“I want,” Pete breathed against his ear, pressed flush against him again, but he couldn’t seem to finish his thought.

“I want you to fuck me,” Patrick echoed for him. Above him, Pete shudder.

The lube was strawberry-scented, Patrick could smell it the second the lid was uncapped. It made him want to laugh again, but Pete cut off the noise with another kiss, pulling Patrick’s legs around his waist.

It had been entirely too long. The first finger burned at first, but their frantic movements from earlier tapered off and the world seemed to slow down again, back to normal. With every push of Pete’s finger, it got easier. After a few minutes, Patrick was even whining against Pete’s lips and arching his hips off the bed.

“You can’t even imagine how you look,” Pete whispered, and Patrick wanted to shush him or roll his eyes, but instead he thanked Pete by reaching out to wrap his hand around him and move in sure, quick motions.

They kept it up for several minutes, Pete testing the waters by adding a second, then a third finger – varying the pressure and teasing until Patrick gripped his cock at the base and tugged, making Pete shudder against him. “Now, Pete,” he begged, and then time shifted again.

Patrick had almost forgotten how intense sex could be. Pete gripped one of his hands, bitten-down nails digging into his skin as their forehands brushed, breath mingling as Pete slid in completely.

“Perfect,” Pete sighed.

He moved one hand down to grip at Patrick’s thigh, and the pressure was oddly satisfying. It made Patrick push toward him and as most of the pain dulled away, they found their rhythm. Pete was back to the frantic pace of earlier, and it wasn’t going to last. Patrick scratched down Pete’s back experimentally, and was rewarded with a low groan and Pete’s hips stuttering forward.

Patrick clenched around Pete and was rewarded with another moan and Pete’s hand wrapping back around Patrick’s cock. It was a jerkier movement this time, but he grippd him tighter, and Patrick kept pushing up into that friction, trying to hold on.

“Patrick,” Pete grit out, and his other hand was digging deeper into Patrick’s thighs, enough to leave bruises. “I wanna see you come.”

He couldn’t hold on after that. Patrick jerked up against Pete, into his fist, and came. It wasn’t until later that he noticed he’d gripped Pete’s shoulders so tightly it left faint marks. Pete choked out his name, slamming down into him a few more times before he was coming as well, almost losing his balance from the effort of holding himself upright through it.

Pete lay down beside him, eyes closed until their breathing evened out. Patrick started to giggle again.

Pete opened one eye to watch him, curious. “Usually I last longer?” he asked, hopeful.

Patrick laughed again, hitting his arm. “You were fine.”

“Fine. Is that like, a 5 on a scale of one to ten, or is that like, you’re so fine no one will ever top that, Pete Wentz?”

“Shut up, Pete.”

Pete hit his arm. “You shut up. Unless you’re going to tell me it was actually the second.”

Patrick rolled onto his side toward him. He could already tell he was going to be sore in the morning, and that the bed was sticky and smelled of strawberries, but for now, he couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m not telling you anything, except, I like you. A lot.”

Pete rubbed their noses together in the way small children did to show affection. It tickled, and warmed Patrick’s heart, all at the same time. “I like you too, Patrick Stump,” he agreed, leaning his head onto his chest. “And now I’m going to pass out, because we have a 7 AM crew call.”

He wrinkled his nose. “You couldn’t cancel that too?”

“I have to pay the bills, you know. To afford all the condoms we’re going to be using from now on.”

“Can I put in a request for non-fruit flavored lube?”

Pete shook his head. “It tastes better than it smells, you’ll see.”

Patrick laughed, curling into his side. “That’s what they all say.”

\---

Patrick was almost giving up on sleep entirely. The days were still spent on the boat, especially as the tours began to pick up again from the long winter lull. Their Sunday breaks vanished just as a pod of dolphins returned to the bay.

Once a week, they started offering kayaking lessons or trips to the cave, and although Patrick had gotten good enough to not tip the entire thing over, they still had to hire Travis out to work one of the canoes.

When they finally got off work, every night was spent either cooking dinner at Pete’s or having as many drinks at Scimeca’s as they could get away with before William started making cat calls at their making out, or Patrick warned they were going to be too drunk to drive the boat in the morning.

It had gotten so bad that Patrick finally forbid Pete from seeing him at all on Tuesdays, just so he could catch up with sleep and work. It was his only day off for the whole week now, and Patrick found himself mourning the fall. Which is why he had been so surprised when Pete told him they weren’t working on Sunday.

“It’s the first movie of the year!” he laughed, pressing his nose into Patrick’s bare neck. “It’s so cool. It’s like a drive-in, but picnic-style an without cars.”

“So it’s less a drive-in and more a sit down in the grass kind of thing.” He ran his fingers slowly through Pete’s hair, enjoying the way the other man hummed his approval.

At the foot of the bed, Hemmingway gave a loud snort, likely annoyed they weren’t asleep yet. Pete shrugged. “Kind of, yeah. But cooler.”

“So what movie are they showing?”

Pete shrugged again, resting his head on Patrick’s shoulder. He didn’t sleep much, Patrick found, but on the few occasions he did, he was usually mostly sprawled over Patrick. He rubbed Pete’s back lightly, not pushing him off.

“I don’t know. That’s not the important part.”

“Of course not.” Patrick brushed his lips against Pete’s forehead and joined in on the humming until Pete was going pliant in his arms, snoring lightly against Patrick’s skin. Outside, crickets were chirping, seeming to join in on the harmony, and Patrick felt at peace.

\---

Jon was their usher, though that wasn’t really the right word. He greeted Pete and Patrick at the front entrance, not doing more than smiling at the way Pete clutched at Patrick’s hand, their fingers intertwining. He motioned to a vacant spot on the grass, facing toward one of the wide, stony walls where a large white bed sheet had been strung up. The projector broadcast a blue image against it since the film hadn’t started, and all around people were laying in the grass or sitting on blankets, chatting quietly.

Patrick vaguely recognized the area from Jon’s tour of the Abbey months ago, and remembered it as a graveyard, but when he whispered as much to Pete, he got laughter in return. “This isn’t Poltergeist,” Pete promised, spreading out in the grass. He kicked his shoes off, letting them fall somewhere to the side. “The dead don’t rise up to haunt us. Tonight, at least.”

He recognized a familiar faces in the crowd, as the area was so small it was impossible not to. Brendon was leaning against one of the headstones, looking lonely. Patrick almost invited him over, but Pete took his hand again and leaned half against Patrick until he forced his gaze down at him.

This was one of the first times they’d gone out to anywhere other than Scimeca’s or Pete’s place. He felt like everyone was watching them, wondering why he wasn’t Joe, but Pete smiled lazily up at him and Patrick thought maybe it didn’t matter what they thought.

\---

“Welcome,” Jon grinned when Spencer stepped up. He paused, glancing past Spencer in the moonlight, trying to find anyone else. “Where’s Ryan?”

“Happy to see you too, Jon.” He was, really, but he didn’t want to give that away just yet. Ryan hadn’t wanted to come, insisting that Casablanca was much too cliché, and Spencer had practically run out the door as soon as he realized that meant a night alone with Jon. Well, a night with Jon and everyone else on the island.

Jon scrunched his face up at him in that way that Spencer never knew how he managed to make such silly expressions, but then he was smiling. “Does that mean…?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He paused, and then his face betrayed him and he switched, muscles spasming into a smile. “Unless you mean that we’re alone, in which case, yes.”

“Let me lead you to your seat, then.”

Spencer let himself be led to the back room, where the art was often hung in the space that doubled as a gallery. Now, without the usual lights set up, it was unusually dark, though some moonlight did pool in from cracks in the stone. One stone was missing entirely, and it was there that the projector rested.

“You always take me to creepy places,” Spencer muttered. There was no clear view of the screen from here, at least he thought, until Jon pulled him onto a bench pressed against the back wall. Through the front door, they could see the blue screen, the people all gathered around outside.

“It’s part of my charm,” Jon said, pressing his nose into Spencer’s neck and inhaling. “It’s been awhile.”

Spencer mentally began ticking off the days it had been since he’d seen Jon alone, but he stopped when he got to ten. It was just as depressing as counting the days until his student visa ran out, and there was nowhere left to go but home. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in the dark.

Jon was always quick to forgive. He settled peacefully against Spencer and they didn’t talk much until he disappeared outside, announcing the start of the movie and then running back inside to press play. There were a few brief moments of malfunction with the audio, while Spencer leaned back and laughed at Jon’s curses, but eventually they wound back up in the same position as before.

“So why didn’t Ryan come?” Jon asked, trailing his fingers down Spencer’s arm.

“Not his kind of movie. If we were showing The Bicycle Thief, he’d be here and I’d be asleep already.” He leaned his head onto Jon’s shoulder, trying to match their breathing.

“What’s your kind of movie?”

“I’m supposed to say something like Citizen Kane, right?” Jon smiled into his hair and his breathing shifted a little. Spencer had to try again to match it, but he fell into the rhythm easy enough. “But really it’s like, popcorn movies where I don’t have to think. Pirates, X-Men.”

“You think too much as it is,” Jon murmured, and Spencer would have laughed if it didn’t feel like too much effort. His eyes drifted closed, even as he tried to keep them open. He actually liked Casablanca. “So do I.”

“What do you think about?” Spencer was going to fall asleep if Jon kept stroking his arm like that, breathing evenly into his hair. It felt safe here.

“You, mostly.” At that, Spencer did laugh – reaching to grasp Jon’s hand and stop its slow stroking. His fingers were warm and a little sweaty, but they felt nice in his grasp. “I can’t think of anything else lately.”

If Spencer were honest with himself, he thought about Jon far more than he should have. Every night he made a mental list of things he couldn’t wait to say to him the next time he saw him, and stupid little mundane tasks like his job were getting to be almost impossible to focus on. Part of him wanted to blame Jon. The other wanted to beg the world to stop spinning and just let Spencer stay in moments like these forever. It scared him.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Jon continued on, and his hand gripped Spencer’s tighter. “But I love you.”

His heart started beating faster in his chest, and there was no way his quick breaths could slow to Jon’s constantly steady pace now. He pressed his nose into Jon’s neck, feeling his insides twist and churn with dread, and a glimmer of hope. Jon Walker loved him.

He took in a shaky breath as Jon held him, and nodded slowly. “I love you too.”

\---

“Rick’s a total coward.”

Patrick glanced up from the movie to Pete, amused. The atmosphere was casual enough that no one seemed to mind talking – he’d already heard more about Victoria Asher’s love life with Gabe than he ever wanted. “As suggested by the gun running, the blackmailing the police… or?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “None of those are brave things. It’s way easier to like, blackmail someone than it is to just go home.”

“The point of this movie is so not that Humphrey Bogart needs to go back to America!” He laughed, pulling Pete closer when he gave Patrick a sour look.

“Maybe it should be.”

Patrick usually wasn’t that attuned to Pete’s random habit of just blurting out random things that might occasionally mean something, but this time, he felt far too aware. “We’re not talking about the movie, are we?”

Pete made another face at him, and Patrick wanted to laugh, but he smiled instead. “So who’s Rick in this scenario?” In his mind, it was Joe, for running off to let he and Pete have some time together, but Pete seemed more concerned with not going home. He sighed. “It’s you, right?” When Pete wouldn’t meet his eyes, he nodded again.

“Maybe I just meant I get not wanting to go home.”

They’d talked about why Pete left – the school board hearing after it was determined Pete was sleeping with a student, the flashy story in the newspaper after he was fired. But this felt different somehow. “Do you mean you’ll never go back?”

“Well, I’ve already been back.”

Patrick looked at him quickly, surprised. “You have? When?”

Pete waved his hand, looking just as startled. “We go back every year, to California. Take a few tourists and overcharge them to see the different whales, usually do some of the eco-stuff.” He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You’ve never mentioned it.”

Pete smiled sheepishly. “We were thinking about going to San Diego this July.”

That was exactly when Patrick’s student visa ran out. He felt his chest tighten at the idea that Pete was already planning to take him home, but at the same time, couldn’t help but find it oddly sweet.

“It’s not because of you,” Pete said quickly, but Patrick didn’t quite believe him. He kissed him instead, ignoring the cat calls coming from Gabe behind them.

\---

“He loves me,” Spencer said, once he finally had Patrick cornered. It had taken some maneuvering to get him away from Pete, but no one else seemed to know about them. At least, Spencer hoped no one else knew.

Patrick blinked at him for a moment before it registered on his face. “That’s fantastic!”

“I don’t know,” Spencer sighed, leaning his head back. “Is it? I feel sick.”

“Don’t fall over.”

“I’m not a girl.” Spencer straightened, running a hand through his hair. “What do I do? What if he expects me to spend more time with him now? I don’t have any more time. I can’t hurt Ryan.”

Patrick rubbed his back lightly. “Just breathe, Spencer. I’ll talk to him.”

\---

Patrick’s idea of talking to Jon mostly involved him poking his head into the projector room, where Jon sat alone smoking a cigarette, and saying, “You know, if Ryan were busier with something like a boyfriend, Spencer might have more free time.” He paused, nodding to the projector. “That’s really cool, by the way.”

And then Pete was pulling him along, one hand on his thigh and whispering the filthy things he was going to do to him once they were alone on the boat.

\---

“There are actual llamas roaming wild! Like, you don’t understand, Pete, they tried to eat my shoelaces yesterday.” Joe couldn’t stand still, he kept pacing the length of his tiny hotel room. It made him feel claustrophobic and psychotic, all at once. Especially when all he could see outside was the wide, open terrain.

In his mind’s eye, he could see Pete standing in their bathroom, trying to shave even while gripping the cell phone, but he’d put the razor down each time Joe said something particularly funny and lean his head against the mirror, shaking with silent laughter. At home, he always tried to come up with something witty to say, because he loved when Pete did that – it made him feel cooler, or funnier than he really was.

“Did you provoke these wild llamas?”

Joe humphed indignantly. “I am a conversationalist. I leave the wild life alone!”

“Is that like the time you brought that puffin back to our apartment to nurse it back to health? And you kept bringing it out to watch Simpsons marathons because it looked lonely? Or when our bathtub was otherwise occupied for two weeks by turtles?”

“That,” Joe said slowly, “is totally different.” He grinned into the receiver, wishing he could see Pete’s face.

“You haven’t even mentioned penguins once! This is a record for you.”

“Oh!” That got Joe going again, propelling him back into his frantic pace around the length of his room. It was three steps to any corner, and even though he wasn’t tall by any stretch of the imagination, his bed was barely big enough for him. He felt bad for the taller members of their research team. “There’s this one girl, I named her Padme, and you shut up about that, but she broke her left wing. I’ve been helping them keep track of her progress, and we have her in our facility right now just until it heals. I think she likes me, because she’s always coming to stand on my shoes when I go in.”

“You’re crazy,” Pete laughed, but Joe didn’t care. He got to spend his days with penguins. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this happy. Actually, he could – but Chicago felt a long ways away from the isolated hills of Chile, with only the crackle of Pete’s voice across a phone line.

“Maybe,” Joe said, and finally sunk down into the uncomfortable mattress of his too-small bed. “How’s things in Ireland?”

“Wet.”

“Isn’t it done raining yet?”

Pete clicked his teeth together. “Have you forgotten already? It never stops raining here, it’s the Atlantic Ocean.”

Joe closed his eyes, imagining the green, spotted islands laying out before Roaring Water Bay. The memory wasn’t as clear as it had been when he’d arrived a few weeks ago. “Mmm. I remember.” The weather really wasn’t much better here. It was still cold, even if the sun seemed to shine more. Maybe it was just Joe’s mood that made it all seem better. “How’s Patrick?”

Pete paused on the other end for the first time. “He’s okay.”

Really, Joe didn’t know if he wanted to hear about how great things were or weren’t. Whatever they were, they didn’t involve him right now – and that had been his decision. Some nights when he couldn’t sleep, the stupid alpacas at the farm next door bleating into the night and his back protesting from the hard mattress, he wondered what he’d been thinking at all. He missed curling into Pete’s side and knowing he’d still be there when he woke up.

“Just okay? Are you happy?”

There was another long pause. “Happy,” he said at length. “Not happier, but happy.”

Somehow, that made Joe feel better on all counts. “Did I tell you about the two Rockhopper males that keep fighting? I named one of them Lars Ulrich, and the other Mustaine.”

Pete was laughing again. “Oh my God.”

“Shut up! Maybe he looked like a Lars.”

He couldn’t see it, but Joe heard Pete’s forehead hitting the mirror, his laughter echoing throughout their tiny bathroom. “I _miss_ you.”

Joe couldn’t help but grin, hugging a pillow tightly to his chest and imagining it was something, someone, else. “Good. I miss you too.”

\---

"Where are we going?" Patrick asked, laughing as Pete bundled him into the truck and ran around to the driver's side.

"You'll see," Pete said and gave Patrick an over-exaggerated wink. 

Patrick shook his head, still laughing, and allowed Pete to take his hand as he started the truck and set off toward the dock. The sun was shining in through the window, and Patrick wished he didn’t look so bad in sunglasses. When Pete put his pair on beside him, he looked cool. Patrick stuck to squinting.

"Can you tell me what we're doing?" 

Pete grinned and shook his head, squeezing Patrick's hand and placing it on his thigh as he changed gears. "It's a surprise."

"Should I be scared?" Patrick began to stroke Pete's thigh absently, lightly scratching.

"I don't think so."

Patrick watched Pete and the way he was looking at the road a little too determinedly, a smile playing at his lips. He was obviously pleased with himself, Patrick thought, but he allowed Pete to play things his way. Whatever this was, Patrick was sure it couldn’t be worse than a date spent watching seals give birth.

They stopped at the dock and Pete reached into the back of the truck and pulled out a wicker basket, complete with a blue ribbon wrapped around it.

"A picnic?" Patrick said, incredulous. “Did you make it?”

Pete winked again. "Come on." He closed the car door and paused. “But no, I didn’t,” he said, motioning to the ribbon. “You can thank Greta.”

They walked down to the jetty and Patrick saw Gabe sitting on his deck-chair, sunglasses firmly in place, smiling up at the sun.

"What is he doing here?" Patrick hissed, suddenly afraid. There was something about Gabe that always struck him as off – perhaps it was the way he tried to grab Patrick’s ass every time he saw him.

Pete laughed again, ignoring him. "Dude," he called out to Gabe, "is everything ready?"

"It's ready man," Gabe answered without even looking up or removing his sunglasses. "I'll be here in case of emergency. You two have fun."

Patrick began to protest but Pete pulled him onto the boat and pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. "He's just back up, that's all. Just in case."

“In case of what?” Patrick asked slowly, but he was promptly ignored.

He pushed the basket into Patrick's arms and shooed him to the back of the ferry. "Store that properly. That's for after."

Patrick wanted to ask more questions, but they wouldn’t have been answered anyway and Pete turned away, whistling as he started up the ferry and headed out to sea.

Patrick sat, watching the coastline spread out before him and as always, his breath caught. He couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than this. No matter where he went for the rest of his life, he imagined there would always be a little piece of his soul here.

Pete stopped the boat after twenty minutes and lowered the anchor. He walked slowly towards Patrick, smiling in that excited way Patrick loved so much.

"This is either a really good thing, or a really bad thing," Patrick said, remembering why he’d been so nervous before. Pete was rarely able to keep secrets, especially when they were of good things. "You didn't bring me here to kill me and dump my body did you?"

Pete laughed. "Hey, there's an idea." He sat down next to Patrick and kissed him softly, their chapped lips brushing for a moment until he pulled away, pointing down at the water. "Look over there."

Patrick had to twist his whole body to face the direction Pete was pointing, but when he did, his breath caught in his throat. "Oh my God," he whispered reverently. "Dolphins." He’d seen them possibly hundreds of times from the boat, but they were much lower to the water in the ferry, and he rarely got to stop and look like this without some tourist pestering him for questions about the breed or their eating habits.

"Yeah," Pete murmured, his lips brushing against Patrick's ear. "Which is why the picnic had to be eaten after. You can't swim on a full stomach you know? Did your mother never tell you that?"

Patrick dragged his eyes away from the dolphins to stare at Pete. "Swim...?"

"With the dolphins yeah. Just like you wanted."

He looked so smug that Patrick almost wanted to hit him, but even when Gabe wandered down with two wet suits, offering to help them put them on so long as he got to take them off again later, all Patrick could do was keep grinning.

\---

Jon usually just seemed to appear out of thin air, and seeing him was like seeing a dandelion in May. Pleasant, and exciting, but nothing out of the ordinary – no one had gone of their way to make the meeting happen. So when he actually invited them to come to the gallery opening, Ryan was a bit startled. Jon Walker was not the make plans kind of guy.

“Stop making it a big deal,” Spencer sighed, changing his shirt for the third time. “He’s just being nice. It’s not like we have that many people here. He probably just wants some friendly faces.”

Spencer had a point, but Ryan had no intention of telling him that.

The gallery opening, when they finally got there, was nothing like gallery openings back home in Vegas. Ryan had snuck his way into a few, to critique paintings and photographers until people asked what art school he went to, and he mumbled anything other than that he was just in high school.

But here, there were no over-the-top cocktails or wine on silver platters, there was no fancy attire. Ryan kind of liked this better. Everyone wandered around the grassy knoll of the abbey in jeans and t-shirts, where the paintings were being showcased for one day, in the sun, before they’d be moved inside.

“Hey,” Jon said, suddenly beside them, though Ryan didn’t remember how exactly he’d gotten there. Ryan nodded in greeting. “Did you see my stuff yet?”

Spencer rolled his eyes beside him, and Ryan fought the urge to elbow him. “We can’t.”

“You… can’t?”

“No. We have to go, piece by piece. Or we lose the atmosphere. Apparently.”

“The tone,” Ryan corrected. “They were put up in this order for a reason.”

“Oh.” Jon paused, scratching at the back of his neck. “If it makes you feel any better, they were just put up in the order of who brought their stuff first.”

Spencer snorted, and this time, Ryan did elbow him. But only a little.

“I kind of wanted to show you something. It’s not in order, but it won’t ruin the tone. I promise.”

Ryan glanced at Jon and his hopeful smile, and sighed. “Fine.”

Jon motioned for Spencer to stay, which seemed odd, but Spencer made a mad dash away from the abstract paintings Ryan had been hovering by, so he wasn’t too worried. “Right over here,” Jon said, and led him away from the photographs, where he had assumed they were going.

“Jon,” he started to protest as soon as he realized.

“This won’t take long,” Jon promised.

Ryan stiffened as they stopped directly in front of Brendon’s booth, dozens and dozens of clay pots and mugs and bowls spread out before them. Brendon himself was standing behind the display, wringing his hands, and holding several wild flowers.

He held them out to Ryan, hands shaking. “I missed you,” he said, quietly. Ryan took in a sharp breath. “I’m really, really sorry. Whatever I did.”

Ryan wanted to bolt, but his feet wouldn’t move. Even if they had, Jon continued to stand there, blocking his exit. He hesitated for a moment longer, then took the flowers. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he whispered back, just as quiet. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

When they hugged, Ryan did think it was odd that Jon looked even happier than either Brendon or himself, but he focused instead on the way Brendon felt that close again. 

\---

“Do you like them?” Jon asked, stopping beside Spencer.

Spencer only glanced once to make sure Ryan wasn’t there. He’d already seen most of these photographs and had even helped Jon pick out a few for the exhibit, but he hadn’t seen one. It was of their hands, gripped loosely, while has assumed he slept, as he didn’t remember the picture being taken. “Stalker,” he murmured, and Jon laughed loudly.

He paused, looking around again. “What did you do with Ryan, anyway?”

“He’s busy,” Jon swore, pressing closer. “Like we could be, if we go out back and make out.”

Spencer sighed, mostly for dramatic effect, and let himself be pulled toward the exit. “I want to see the rest of the photographs.”

“You will,” Jon promised. “But later.”

\---

“Why did you stop being my friend?”

They were seated now out front, in the damp grass and watching as a few more people trickled into the entrance, their shoes leaving tracks in the mud. Ryan leaned his head back against the stone, watching the blue sky overhead. Beside him, Brendon fidgeted.

“I was an idiot.”

Brendon drew in a sharp breath. “I need a better answer.”

Ryan smiled sadly. “I know you do. You deserve that.”

They continued to sit in silence, watching the clouds sailing along above them. There was no answer that was going to be good enough. Ryan liked Brendon – he didn’t know when it started, but it seemed as though maybe he always had. But there had been no one in so long, and relationships made things complicated. They were leaving soon…

“Stop thinking,” Brendon whispered.

“I was scared,” Ryan said, so sudden that it made his head spin to finally have the words out there. He hated admitting his own fears more than almost anything else in the world, but the way Brendon was looking at him twisted at something else in his chest, something that had nothing to do with fear or admitting vulnerability.

Brendon didn’t look hopeful, or angry. For once, he was a stoic image of patience. Whatever he was thinking, Ryan couldn’t tell. The only clue he got was Brendon’s calmly-asked, “Are you still scared?”

Ryan considered this for a moment before slowly shaking his head. “I’m not. I’m happy.”

With that, it was as if Brendon had been set free. He launched himself at Ryan, laughing as they tumbled into the dirt. They tickled each other for a moment until they wound up laying together, Brendon’s head on Ryan’s chest, feeling him breath in and out.

“That looks like a rabbit,” Ryan said, pointing up at a cloud.

“Or a bike helmet,” Brendon offered.

They both burst into laughter, and it felt right. For the first time in weeks, Ryan really did feel happy and relaxed.

\---

Jon had Spencer pressed up against the hard stone of the abbey, and it felt uncomfortable, but a little discomfort was worth whatever he was doing with his hand. “Fuck,” Spencer whispered, pressing into his fist. There were people nearby, but no one could see what they were doing the way Jon had them angled – at least, that’s what Spencer kept trying to tell himself. He didn’t want to know if he was putting on a free show.

“You like that?” Jon was grinning, twisting his hand around Spencer’s cock and looking entirely too delighted at the noise Spencer made. Usually quiet and laidback Jon always seemed to come more alive when they were doing this. Spencer nipped at his neck, his own fingers digging roughly into Jon’s thigh.

“You know I do.”

“Tell me how much.” He kissed Spencer, which made it increasingly more difficult to talk, but he tried to show his appreciation by arching against Jon’s body, struggling for even more contact.

Jon pumped his hand over him one, two more times, and then it was over, still embarrassingly fast for Spencer’s taste. “I love you,” Jon whispered as Spencer leaned back again into the wall, grunting in agreement. He could do little more than gawk as Jon licked his fingers slowly before wiping them against the wall.

“So nasty.” Spencer made a face, and Jon laughed, pulling him into a hug.

“Can you come over later and return the favor?”

Spencer paused, but then smiled and nodded. Ryan would ask questions, but it was opening day for the gallery again. He figured it might be nice to celebrate, and he’d seen the bottle of wine Jon had bought a few weeks earlier. They’d been saving it, for something just like this. “I can, yeah.”

Jon beamed at him, tugging on his hand to lead him back inside. But something caught Spencer’s eye as they turned the corner and he pulled Jon back, peering around more slowly and trying not to be seen.

“What?” Jon whispered. “Are Gabe and Vicky having sex outside again?”

Spencer shook his head and took another look. But sure enough, there, laying in the grass, were Ryan and Brendon. Who seemed very much on friendly terms, if the way Ryan had his tongue shoved down Brendon’s throat was any indication. “I guess they made up.”

Jon poked his head around the corner as well before pulling Spencer back entirely. He smiled proudly, pointing at himself. “That’s my doing.”

The words hung in the air, but not at all the way Spencer imagined Jon had hoped they would. He tried to grasp at them, to wrap his mind around their full meaning, but couldn’t. “You… made them make out?”

“Well.” He paused when Spencer clearly wasn’t reacting the way he’d hoped, shoving his hands into his pockets instead. “I made them talk. I was only kind of hoping they’d make out.”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. “Why would you hope they’d make out?”

This time, Jon’s proud look was turning to one of confusion and guilt. Spencer stepped closer, eyes still narrowed. It didn’t make any sense. “Um,” Jon said.

Spencer crossed his arms. “Why, Jon?”

“I thought… if he had a boyfriend, maybe we could hang out more…”

He started to laugh, harshly. “Oh, did you?”

Jon was frowning now, definitely confused. “You’re always saying that you can’t come over or do anything because Ryan will suspect. Or be mad you have a boyfriend. I thought maybe if he had one too, he’d see it didn’t mean you two weren’t friends or whatever.”

“And who the hell gave you the right to decide that Ryan needs a boyfriend? Or what Ryan and I both need?” Spencer was shaking with anger now, every muscle having gone tense. He wanted to hit something, especially if that something was Jon.

He still looked confused, which was only fueling Spencer’s resentment and anger. “I was trying to help,” Jon said, quietly, tilting his head to look at Spencer with the same look he’d seen Jon give small children in town, or Pete, when their logic didn’t make any sense.

Spencer shoved him.

Jon stumbled back, startled. “I don’t want your help,” Spencer hissed. “Ryan and I got along just fine before you, Jon Walker.”

Jon did his best to look cute and innocent again, the playful smile that always got Spencer to stay an extra hour or two making another appearance. “Are we using full names now, Spencer Smith?”

“Fuck you.”

The smile was gone again, and Jon reached out for his arm, but Spencer pulled it back quickly. “We don’t need you,” Spencer said again, more firm. No one had the right to tell him what he or his best friend needed. Jon didn’t understand how they functioned, why was he trying to meddle? Spencer had thought Jon was different.

“Why is this such a big deal?”

“It just is!” Spencer shouted, and some people were turning to look at them now. He grit his teeth, lowering his voice. “Get the hell away from me, Jon. I mean it.”

Jon tried to touch his arm again, but this time, Spencer slapped him. They stood staring at each other for a moment, silent, until Spencer stalked away.

\---

“Is it done yet?”

Pete kept hovering near the kitchen, equal parts glaring at Patrick and smiling hopefully. When he was hungry, sometimes Pete was a little bitch. Patrick laughed and pointed to the sofa for the tenth time in as many minutes. “Sit,” he ordered.

Pete grumbled, but walked away.

After so many nights spent either enduring Pete’s cooking (which mostly involved slightly-burnt eggs and toast) and Alex and Ryland’s constant interrogation of Pete’s motives anytime they went there for real food, Patrick decided he should put Pete’s kitchen to good use.

He wasn’t that great of a cook, but he could do some simple things. Back in San Diego, living on a student’s budget, he and Frank often had to get creative with what they ate. Having a real budget – namely, Pete’s – made a big difference.

“You’re going to like this. I hope.” Patrick ran a hand through his hair, looking down at the lamb chops he’d just pulled out of the oven. He really didn’t know how to tell if they were done.

“Now can we eat?” Pete sighed from the other room.

“If you shut up.”

Pete bounced into the kitchen, and for a few moments there was nothing but the sound of clattering dishes and silverware, Pete finally remembering to kiss Patrick and thank him moments before they ate.

“This is awesome,” Pete said a few minutes later, when most of the food was already gone, their previously grumbling stomachs finally silenced. Maybe Patrick had taken a little long to cook the meal, but it _did_ taste awesome if he did say so himself. “Is there dessert?”

“Shit.”

Pete laughed, shaking his head. “It’s fine. I’ll just take my dessert in other ways.”

Patrick rolled his eyes, but really, he was smiling.

When dinner was over, Pete had the mind to wash the dishes and let Patrick lounge on the sofa for a few minutes, flipping idly through the channels. He wound up on an old Godzilla movie, and even though it wasn’t usually his kind of thing, there weren’t many other options.

Besides, he knew Pete liked it. Lately, Patrick found himself doing a lot of things because he thought Pete might like them. It wasn’t a bad thing – he’d laughed for a good ten minutes after telling Greta that line of thought and her worried statement of, “You know, you can just say no. You don’t have to do those things.”

No, Patrick found himself bringing snacks onto the boat that he knew Pete liked, so after a tour, they could sit on the dock and eat chips and candy and sunflower seeds together. He started wearing more blue, because Pete said one day that he liked the way it brought out his eyes. He even switched his toothpaste because Pete liked the coloring on the red box better than the plain white one.

Patrick kind of liked all those changes just because of the way Pete smiled at him once he figured out what Patrick was doing.

“What are watching?” he asked, collapsing onto the sofa beside him. “What is this?”

“Godzilla,” Patrick said, leaning slowly into Pete. It tickled a little when he stroked his arm, but Patrick only twitched once or twice and then settled.

“Really?”

“Would you rather watch wedding bloopers?”

Pete chuckled into his shoulder, shaking his head. That tickled too, but Patrick just smiled. “Godzilla it is.”

“It’s not like we’re really going to watch it anyway.”

“Oh, we aren’t?”

Patrick smiled, leaning closer and brushing their lips together. “No,” he whispered, closing his eyes, “we’re definitely not.”

  
**Summer**   


_”Pete!” His voice sounded like he was begging, even to his own ears, and Joe cursed himself for that – but not as much as he was cursing Pete. He grabbed at Pete’s hands, trying to stop him from throwing any more clothes into the suitcase he had frantically slapped onto the bed. “You’re not going anywhere.”_

_Pete laughed bitterly, shaking fingers throwing another shirt into the suitcase. “And what, I should stay here? I don’t have a job here anymore.”_

_“You can get another one!” Why wouldn’t Pete listen? He wiped angrily at his own eyes, trying to reach for the suitcase and take it away, forever, but Pete snatched it back._

_“You think it works like that? That the next university isn’t going to call here and hear all about how I slept with a student? No one hires you after something like this.”_

_It wasn’t fair. Joe’s parents had been called as well, Joe thrown out of school and Pete had lost his job. He’d been dragged home and screamed at for hours, questioned by the authorities if Pete had abused him or coerced him, and he had given all the right answers, kept his mouth shut about how angry he was that no one realized he was 19 and old enough to make his own decisions. It had been worth it, until he’d arrived at Pete’s apartment, and found half the belongings packed away._

_They hadn’t done anything wrong. Pete didn’t have to run away. “You could get another job, doing something else,” Joe whispered. “Anything else.”_

_Pete sneered, and started to zip up his bag, but Joe threw himself on top of it, putting himself in Pete’s way. “We could make it work, we could run off to Mexico together, or work tables for the rest of our lives, but we’d be together, Pete. Don’t you want that?”_

_“You’re 19,” Pete said, and it was the first time Pete had ever brought up his age in any sort of a condescending tone. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”_

_“I do!” Joe shouted, and when Pete gave a hard tug on the strap of the bag, Joe pulled back just as hard. Pete stumbled a few inches in his direction. “I love you, we could do this. None of this other stuff matters, just you and me. Please Pete. Please.”_

_Pete watched him, the fight draining from his eyes, and for a moment Joe thought he was really going to say yes. But then he was yanking the bag out from under Joe and hoisting it over his shoulder, away from Joe. “Go get a degree somewhere else.”_

_“I don’t care about a degree. Where are you going? Let me come with you.”_

_Pete actually smiled, though it was cruel. It wasn’t until years later that Joe realized why he looked that way just then, or why he whispered, “Somewhere no one will ever find me, especially you,” and walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him._

_Nothing had ever hurt so much in Joe’s entire life._

\---

Spring was over too fast. Change had been ripe in the air since April, but by May, Patrick’s vision went dizzy every time he thought about what loomed at the end of the month. Now that it was finally here, he felt ready to throw up.

Joe was home.

Well, not yet, but he was a short drive away from it. Patrick had been left to hang up banners and arrange the party hats. There was double to do, as it was two parties in one. Ryan and Spencer weren’t leaving for another two days, but it seemed silly to have two parties that close together, so Pete had made the executive decision to combine a Welcome Home Party with a Bon Voyage one. The mixed messages seemed to match Patrick’s mood.

“How are you?” Greta asked, glancing up from where she was sprinkling pink glitter onto the party hats.

Patrick opened his mouth to give her some answer about how everything was great, really, he was excited to see Joe in an hour when Pete got back from picking him up at the airport. But that was all a lie.

Patrick was terrified out of his mind.

He and Pete had discussed what happened next in only the most vague of senses. Neither had a good answer, and the closest that Patrick had come was the night before, when curled up in Patrick’s bed at the Ivy League, Pete had whispered, “I promised him I’d keep his bed for him when he got home.” Patrick’s hand had stilled in its place, tangled up in Pete’s hair. Of course Pete had. Why shouldn’t he?

“What does that mean?” he’d asked slowly.

“I don’t know,” Pete admitted, and with a kiss, they had let it slide – it was easier to press closer, to beg for more friction, more skin, more time. It was easier to beg for anything other than what Patrick really wanted – the spring months to stay, forever, and for Pete and Patrick to remain as they’d been for not nearly enough months.

So instead of smiling at Greta and nodding, Patrick shook his head slowly and whispered, “No.”

She seemed to understand, reaching for his hand and giving it a brief squeeze. “Me neither,” she admitted.

An hour later, after people had finally started to trickle in, Greta motioned from the window. “They’re pulling into the drive way.”

Patrick took to a corner, somewhere out of sight. He could still see the entire spectacle from his vantage point as the door flew open and everyone shouted, “Welcome home!” Joe laughed, his smile brighter and wider than Patrick remembered, and a warm tan peeking out from under his Metallica shirt as he set about hugging a few people. When he got to Greta, they each paused until she excused herself and went to get the ice out.

Pete looked happier too. There was a sudden brightness around him, and he kept reaching out to touch Joe’s arm or back, as though making sure he was still there. Patrick wanted to disappear into the floor below.

It happened sooner rather than later, which really, had been expected. Joe spotted him, hidden in his corner, and walked over. The smile waned a little, but it was still there in his eyes, and Patrick felt like he was trying to convey something deeper in the way he pulled Patrick into a long hug.

“I missed you,” Joe said into his ear, laughing as he pulled back. “I’m going to bore the hell out of you with stories about penguins.”

“I like penguins,” Patrick said.

Joe leaned closer, eyes wide. “Want to know a secret? Me too.”

Despite himself, Patrick found himself laughing, leaning against Joe for support.

\---

Ryan had to practically drag Spencer out the door for their own going away party. Really, Ryan had found he’d been having to drag Spencer out of bed to do anything at all lately. Mostly, he seemed to just want to lay in bed and sleep, which wasn’t completely out of character, but it was a lot of sleeping. Even by his own standards.

He would have understood if Spencer didn’t like that he was dating Brendon, but instead of ignoring Brendon the way he had when he hadn’t liked Ryan’s tenth grade boyfriend, Chad, he still made small talk. He still gave Brendon pieces of chocolate occasionally when he had extra, and he didn’t complain when Ryan pretended to get them lost on the way to the seal rocks and they somehow wound up at Brendon’s cottage instead. None of it made sense.

Not that Ryan really had a lot of time to make sense of anything lately.

“I don’t want to go,” Spencer said when they arrived at Pete’s house. He could hear music and laughter inside, and Greta saw him from the window and gave them a smile and a wave.

“We’re here, it’s kind of late for that,” Ryan said, and he sounded too much like Spencer for his own taste. He even crossed his arms. “Besides, it’s our party.”

Spencer closed his eyes. “It’s not our party, it’s Joe’s. Pete just invited us here because he felt obligated.”

Ryan laughed. “When has Pete ever done anything because he felt obligated?”

There was no answer to that, though Spencer still tried with an icy glare.

He sighed and pulled on Spencer’s arm. “Will you just come on? We’ll stay for a bit and leave.” Ryan didn’t really want to stay the whole time either, not with such little time left with Brendon.

\---

“There you are!” Pete hopped onto the kitchen counter beside Patrick, taking a beer and clinking it against Patrick’s. It was dark outside now, and there were a lot more people stumbling through the narrow hallways. It felt more like one of Pete’s parties.

Patrick nodded slowly. “Here I am.”

Pete sighed quietly beside him, but he seemed determined to make Patrick smile. “On the way back here, this giant stork looking thing was wandering around on the side of the road, but right as I’m getting close, it decides it’s time to fly! So this bird, which is bigger than me, starts to fly right across the road in front of the car, instead of away from it, and I’m screaming and Joe’s laughing his ass off…”

“That’s funny.” Patrick took a long sip from the beer. He wasn’t trying to be a dick, but his heart just wasn’t in it tonight. It was too hard to pretend to be happy.

Beside him, Pete slowly began to deflate.

“What are we doing?” he asked slowly, looking at Pete.

“What do you mean?”

Patrick waved his hand around the kitchen. This wasn’t the time or the place for the conversation. They should have had it weeks, or at least days, ago, but they’d both been too afraid of the answers. “You and me. Are we dating? Are you and Joe dating? If I kiss you, is he going to freak out? Are we just friends?”

Pete just kept watching him, looking more and more tired. “Couldn’t we just try?”

“Try what, exactly?”

He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the cabinets. “All of us, couldn’t we just try? See what happens?”

Patrick laughed sadly. “That’s what you said at the start of the spring. But he’s home now, Pete.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He turned suddenly to face Patrick, clenching the bottle tighter. “That I somehow didn’t notice? I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t have a plan. I thought I would, but… I don’t. I’m a coward, alright?”

“Maybe you are.” Patrick closed his eyes and took another long sip. By the time he opened his eyes, Pete was gone.

\---

Maybe the party wasn’t so bad after all, Spencer thought, somewhere around his fifth drink. There was an endless supply of alcohol, and no sign of Jon Walker.

Ryan was sitting in Brendon’s lap on the sofa, whispering quietly to him. Spencer watched them, feeling his chest tighten, but he forced himself to push it back down. Ryan had always been and would always be his best friend. He’d never been jealous of him a day in his life and he wasn’t about to start now. Besides, they’d be home soon enough, and it would all change again. Nothing ever lasted.

“Hey.”

Except for Jon Walker’s uncanny ability to materialize out of thin air. The paper cup in Spencer’s hands threatened to fold under the pressure he was suddenly putting on it, but he drew in a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. It didn’t work.

Slowly, he turned around. Jon looked just as tired as he did, dressed in an old t-shirt and jeans. Spencer had a weak moment where he wanted to reach out for Jon’s hand, but he felt the anger rising in his throat again.

“I thought you’d be here,” Jon said, swaying nervously back and forth.

“It is my party,” Spencer countered. His logic was fairly impeccable, even with as many drinks as he’d had.

Jon closed his eyes for a brief moment before looking at Spencer again. “I just wanted to talk,” he said slowly.

Spencer shook his head. “I’m done talking. I’m leaving in two days.”

“If I don’t care about that, why should you? Ryan and Brendon appear to be making it work.” He followed Jon’s motion toward the sofa, where they were making out now, and felt his heart sink lower.

“We’re not Ryan and Brendon.”

“Why? Why does Ryan get to date someone and you can’t?”

Ryan was still too caught up in Brendon, but Greta must have sensed the intensity of the situation as she stepped over, carefully placing herself between them. “Is everything okay?” she asked, glancing more toward Jon than Spencer, which hurt.

“We’re fine,” Jon said, and for the first time, Spencer noticed the amount of alcohol on Jon’s breath as well. He hadn’t been at the party for long – Spencer had been on red alert until he finally relaxed enough to have a drink. Which meant Jon had been drinking somewhere else, probably alone, before he came. Spencer almost wanted to ask.

“Get him out of here,” Spencer sighed.

“No.” Jon shrugged Greta’s hand off, and Spencer could see her hesitating, but she stepped back to let Jon do what he needed to do. “I want a goddamn answer,” he said, his voice raising. “You told me you loved me. Doesn’t that count for anything? Don’t I get some fucking reason?”

This time, Ryan was paying attention. He saw the movement on the sofa shifting before he saw Ryan standing beside him, looking hurt and tiny. “You told him you loved him?”

Jon knew his mistake instantly. He slunk back, Greta’s steadying hand on his back to keep him upright, while everyone in the party stared at Ryan and Spencer. He wanted to die.

“We dated,” Spencer whispered, because it was too late now to lie. Too late for so very many things.

“What?” Betrayal flashed in Ryan’s eyes, and he turned first to Jon. Spencer was about to stop him, because no matter how angry he was at Jon, he didn’t want anyone else fighting his battles for him. But then Ryan was turning again, on him. “When? How long?”

When the floor didn’t swallow him up, he cursed every god he could think of.

“How fucking long, Spencer?”

“From the night that you kissed Brendon.”

Ryan’s fists were tiny, but they still hurt when they were aimed at Spencer’s chest. “What the fuck?” he hissed, and Spencer hoped if he just kept his eyes closed, it would all be over faster. “You swore, Spencer, you… I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

It wasn’t at all what Spencer had thought he was going to hear. It felt like a bigger blow than anything else he could have said. Spencer laughed, though it was a surprised, broken thing, and Ryan punched him again. He wheezed a little and let his eyes open. Greta was watching him, swaying on her feet and obviously wanting to join in and pull them apart, but Spencer shook his head at her.

“I thought you’d be mad,” Spencer sighed, quiet.

“I’m mad now!” He didn’t punch him again, but Spencer could see his small fists ready at his side, nails digging into skin. “Do you think that little of me?”

“Brent,” he said, and Ryan continued to stare at him.

He shook his head slowly. “A lot has changed since then.”

“I’m sorry.” There was nothing else to say.

Ryan nodded hesitantly. “I am too. I don’t think we can be friends right now.”

He turned, shaking with anger, and walked out in a scene that felt too much like Spencer’s own exit on Jon for him to feel comfortable. He finally took in a breath and it hurt. Everything suddenly felt too hazy, too disjointed – he staggered back, but there was a wall there to support him.

Jon stepped forward until Spencer held up a hand, wiping angrily at his eyes with his other. “Don’t say I told you so, please.”

“Never,” Jon whispered, shaking his head slowly. “I wouldn’t.”

“You would,” Spencer answered, ducking his head. “You’ve already ruined everything else.”

When the second person walked out on him that night, followed closely by Brendon trailing after Ryan, Spencer tried to remind himself that nothing stayed the same. Even the overwhelming blackness that seemed to cover everything now would subside, eventually.

\---

They met at Dirty’s for lunch. The food wasn’t great, but it was open for lunch, and it was more likely that they could be alone. The idea of going back to either Pete or Patrick’s place for lunch like they’d done so much during the spring felt wrong now, and it was through silent agreement they’d settled on Dirty’s to have the conversation Patrick had long been dreading.

“The humpbacks are back,” Pete said, twitching anxiously across the table from him. “Nate called me to tell me he spotted one, off Flea Island. I thought we’d try to track them down with the tour group today.”

“That’s a good idea,” Patrick agreed. “We can start taking pictures for the season again then too.”

Pete nodded, but didn’t say much else.

“Maybe we should talk?” Patrick asked, reaching to lay his hand over Pete’s. It felt cold to the touch, but Pete’s circulation was poor, and he squeezed it, trying to warm his hand up.

“Or maybe we could find the Shannon Dolphins again,” Pete continued on, turning to stare out the window. “They were pretty entertaining last tour, right?”

“Pete.”

He gripped Patrick’s hand suddenly, intertwining their fingers and turning to face him. “I don’t want to lose you. I love you.”

Patrick smiled sadly, nodding. “I know. But you love Joe too.”

He hesitated, but nodded. “It’s not the same, though…”

“No,” he agreed. He’d thought a lot about this. It hurt, but less than he’d thought it would. “It’s not, because you’ve been with him forever. That’s who you’re meant to be with. He followed you, from Chicago. I can’t compete with what you two have. I don’t even want to.”

Pete looked surprised, and it hadn’t been what Patrick meant, exactly, but when Pete pulled his hand back, Patrick didn’t correct himself. Maybe it was easier this way.

“I want to be friends,” he said slowly, and Pete nodded fervently.

“I wouldn’t let you out of that.”

\---

“So then Lars and Mustaine keep trying to bite each other, which I thought meant maybe they liked each other, but it turned out Chewbacca used to be Lars’ girl until Mustaine stole her away.”

Patrick frowned, looking up from the water he’d been scanning for whales. “Wait, Chewbacca is a girl?”

“There was some confusion,” Joe admitted, shrugging helplessly. “And personally, I think she swung both ways, which is how we got confused in the first place.”

“These are penguins we’re still talking about… right?”

Joe rolled his eyes, pushing Patrick playfully. “Keep up.”

“I’m trying,” he laughed before rubbing his eyes. “You watch for awhile. I think I’m starting to see things.”

Joe nodded and turned to take over, launching into another story about Chile. Patrick nodded along, trying to listen, but his gaze kept drifting to the open door to the wheelhouse, where Pete was standing, looking tired. They’d been avoiding much conversation in the week since they’d agreed to call things off, but Patrick had faith Pete would eventually come around. He hoped sooner rather than later, as Patrick was eventually going to have to leave.

“There!” Joe shouted, kicking the wheelhouse. “Stop the boat!”

The engines died and Pete stepped out onto the deck, scanning the water for whatever Joe had seen. The water seemed too calm, and even Patrick was doubting that Joe had seen anything, but then, some few yards off, a humpback whale surfaced, shooting water off through her blowhole. Pete’s hand grasped at Patrick’s as his breath caught.

“It’s her,” he whispered.

“Who?” Joe asked, leaning over the edge of the boat to wave at the whale. Her tail splashed as though in greeting, and he laughed, giddy.

Pete’s hand was clammy in Patrick’s grasp, but it felt familiar and right. Patrick held his breath.

“Her,” Pete said, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The girl who stuck around so long last year. She was the last one to leave.”

“Maybe she likes you,” Joe said, turning to share a smile with Pete, but his eyes flickered down to their clasped hands and Pete suddenly realized what he was doing, stepping back.

“We should get going,” Pete said, turning back into the wheelhouse. “We have a tour in an hour.”

\---

Patrick got to the boat early one day, before Pete and Joe even arrived, but there was already a girl sitting on her backpack near the boat, looking bored by two young men racing each other up and down the pier. “Hello?” he asked slowly as he approached – they all had on pretty big backpacks to be tourists, but perhaps they were going camping on one of the islands. It wasn’t unheard of, especially now that the summer months had taken away some of the rain.

The girl shot to her feet, looking nervous but trying to remain poised. Behind her, the two boys fell in line, exchanging glances.

“I’m Cassadee,” she said, holding out her hand and beaming at him. “And that’s Mike and, well, Mike.” The two Mikes nodded. “Do you work here?”

He shook her hand hesitantly, glancing around at the empty pier. It was way too early for a tour, the boat wasn’t even prepped yet. “Uh,” he paused, but at their hopeful looks, he nodded. “But I think you’re kind of early, and Joe keeps the logs of who we’re taking on tour, so you’ll have to wait another hour at least…”

“Oh no,” she laughed, shaking her head quickly. “We’re here to work. We’re from the internship program?”

Behind her, the two boys were beaming, even as they bumped shoulders playfully.

\---

“Did you just sort of forget to mention that we had recruits coming in?” Patrick whispered, hoping Cassadee and the two boys couldn’t hear, as soon as Pete climbed out from Joe’s jeep.

Joe looked toward the pier curiously. “It’s too early for a tour,” he said brightly. “But maybe we could charge them extra. I don’t trust the one with Pete’s haircut.”

“What?” Pete spun around to look at them, quickly reaching to fix his hair. “Is that what I look like?”

“Focus,” Patrick sighed. “They work for you. You can’t charge them anything.”

Joe gave them another long look before shrugging. “I don’t remember filling in papers to replace Ryan and Spencer. Oh well, think they get sea sick too?”

“If they do,” Pete said, “we can make Patrick clean it up this time.”

“Oh goody.” With that, Joe bounded off to meet them, leaving Pete and Patrick alone for a moment. They stood in awkward silence, staring at each other, until their cool facades started to slip away.

“How are you?” Pete asked when he obviously could think of nothing better to say.

“You don’t have to make small talk.”

Pete winced, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I thought we were going to try to be friends?”

Patrick sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Isn’t that just something that you say? Go meet your new employees, Pete. I’ll go warm up the engine.”

He wandered off, but it was Joe who tracked his movements, not Pete.

\---

Jon had never been a huge drinker. He liked the occasional drink, especially back home in Chicago with Tom when there was nothing better to do, but drinking alone had always felt sad. Now, it didn’t feel like anything at all, which was exactly what he was going for.

“There you are,” Greta sighed as she slipped onto the bar stool beside him, her pretty purple dress swishing with each movement. “I’m taking you home, Jon.”

“Night’s young,” he argued, and downed the rest of his shot. He could feel her eyes on him, watching his every move, but he didn’t let it stop him from motioning for another drink. Or trying to, anyway. It was made slightly more difficult when she put her hand over his to stop him.

“Come on,” she said, a little more firm.

He shook his head slowly, and some of the sadness he’d been fighting to push down so far seemed to creep up on him. “He said he loved me,” he whispered, closing his eyes once the words were out.

“I know,” she sighed, stroking a few stray hairs off his forehead. “They say if you love something, you let it go.”

“That’s bullshit,” he argued, fingers closing around the cool, empty glass. “If you love something, you don’t let it go at all. If you love something, you don’t want to leave.”

She smiled sadly, and that hurt even worse. “Come home,” she said again, and Jon nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” Jon said, letting go of the glass. “Okay.”

\---

“First drink’s on you,” Joe whispered, and even over the roar of the crowded club, the pulsing music overhead, Pete could obviously hear him. He laughed, tilting his head back until it hit Joe’s shoulder, and he smiled upside down at him.

Joe beamed at him, but then shooed him off toward the bar as he went to grab one of the few open tables. He watched young men and women grinding against each other on the dance floor, and even though they couldn’t have been more than a year or two younger than Joe, he felt decades older.

The thoughts faded away as Pete returned, two brightly colored drinks in hand. “Pick your poison.”

“Red,” Joe said, taking one and enjoying a long sip.

“We can do this in America next month,” Pete said, leaning against Joe again. He was always either clingy or completely untouchable. Joe preferred this Pete – the one that had one hand already on his thigh, scratching out private messages into his skin and eyeing him with already overblown eyes that never seemed to stop wanting.

Joe grinned against his lips as they kissed. “Patrick will be there too,” he reminded, but didn’t press the comment any further. This was his night. Pete seemed to tense, but he let it slide away just as easily as whatever pill he’d taken at the bar. “Dance with me,” he whispered when they parted, and Pete obliged, drinks already forgotten.

They never went dancing like this. Usually Joe had to be a lot drunker to even attempt a dance floor at all, but Pete felt slippery warm in his loose grasp, his body swaying and pressing against him in all the right places. His mind started to melt, trying to ignore the hideous music playing overhead.

He always thought Pete was like water. He wasn’t that graceful, but when Joe’s mind made everything stutteringly slowed down and Pete was grinding against him, always playing a silent game of tug-of-war where Joe constantly had to keep reaching for him, reeling him in too close until they were both sweaty and hard, only to release again and watch him gliding backwards, the thought felt right. Water. Pete. He smiled and let his eyes drift closed, enjoying just the feel of their bodies pressed close together.

Joe pressed his lips to Pete’s neck and smiled when Pete was laughing, low and already pretty far-gone. “Tickles,” he murmured.

“Don’t care,” Joe sighed, snaking one arm around his waist and holding him closer. “I’ve always loved you.”

“Mmm.” Pete was falling into him, his hands tangling in Joe’s hair, though he didn’t remember how they got there. “Always?”

He pressed their foreheads together, forcing their eyes to meet. For the moment, the world sped up to real time, but then it was just them, in some bar, a million years ago. “Always,” he whispered.

Pete mouthed the word back, testing. “I love you,” he said, just as quietly, and Joe smiled so wide it actually hurt.

“Take me home,” he said, giving Pete’s hand a light tug, but Pete was laughing and reeling backwards.

“I think you’ll have to take _me_ home, Joe,” he said, and even though the moment was shattered, Joe was laughing and dragging him out to a waiting taxi that would cost entirely too much money to get them home, but that was okay. This was his night, his goodbye, and he’d do it exactly as he saw fit.

\---

The sky was overcast, but Jon didn’t mind. It matched his permanent feelings. As he walked from his small cottage to the gallery, he didn’t hurry along like the few other people he saw along the way, trying to get out of the rain. Instead, he pulled the hood of his coat down tighter and walked straight, one foot in front of the other, and wondered how painful death by lightning really was.

“You’re late,” Vicky said when he finally did arrive, dripping water all over the stone floor.

The lights inside the old room seemed blinding, and he squinted against them to even make out her outline.

“No one’s coming today,” he said, shrugging off his coat. “Look outside.”

Vicky clicked her tongue in annoyance, but walked away. They’d had several fights lately, mostly as Jon’s photographs stopped being of pretty, shiny beaches and local wildlife and turned to ominous looking trees and broken, twisted shards of metal he sometimes found washed ashore. A few weeks ago, they had had a screaming match in the middle of the gallery, and after that, she’d mostly been leaving him alone. Jon was happy for the peace and quiet.

That quiet was unceremoniously interrupted as Brendon came stumbling in from the rain, a huge, oddly shaped coat covering more of Brendon than Jon remembered. “You’re late,” Vicky called, shooting Jon with a look that seemed to scream she was an equal opportunist, just watch her.

“Sorry,” Brendon giggled from inside his coat, starting to try and untangle himself. “We only had one coat.”

Jon looked up from hanging a photo to find there were actually two pairs of shoes hidden underneath the gigantic rain coat. He waited, wondering if Pete was going to appear after one of his strange island visits to collect whatever data the new recruits were getting. Instead though, his heart skipped a beat when Ryan, red-faced and laughing, finally broke free.

“Ryan?” Jon asked, startled.

He turned to look at Jon, smiling until he remembered their last conversation, and then his face changed – but it wasn’t to the anger he’d seen so blatantly spread across his features at the Farewell Party. He almost looked.. guilty.

“Hey.”

“When did you get here?”

Jon felt like he couldn’t breathe. The question on the tip of his tongue, the most important thing in the world, wouldn’t slip out. Jon didn’t know which answer he wanted to that question.

Brendon was still trying to untangle himself from the coat, and Ryan paused before answering, pulling on one of the sleeves until Brendon was finally able to stand up straight, probably still as drenched as if he hadn’t worn a coat at all.

“I got here yesterday,” Ryan said, moving quickly across the studio to Brendon’s work. He began looking over the pottery, likely taking in all the new pieces Brendon had done in his absence.

Yesterday. Had Spencer been on the island a whole day and he didn’t know?

“When are you going home?”

Ryan met Brendon’s eyes across the length of the room and they shared a private, soft smile. “I don’t know,” Ryan laughed, and Brendon moved to wrap an arm tightly around Ryan from behind. “I’m just kind of here, indefinitely. I missed it too much. I don’t know how I’m going to afford any of this…”

Brendon beamed at him. “You could make pottery too.”

He shook his head, but he was smiling. “Or maybe just get my old job back. If Pete will have me.”

“I think he’d have you both back,” Jon said quickly. If Spencer was really here, then Jon would break down Pete’s door and force him to rehire them. Anything to make him stay this time.

Ryan’s smile faded, and he nudged Brendon off lightly. “Jon,” he said slowly. “Spencer stayed in Vegas. He thinks…” Ryan wouldn’t meet his eyes, but it didn’t matter. The world was spinning out of control now anyway. “I was too mad. It took us awhile to make up. But he thought he’d put you through enough.” Jon opened his mouth to protest, but Ryan held up a hand. “I know,” he said quietly, “that it’s stupid, but when Spencer gets something in his head… There’s no changing his mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Brendon said when Jon didn’t answer.

\---

The next morning, everything seemed to slow down. When he woke up, Hemmy was laying between them, making soft snuffling noises and trying to eat the blanket in his sleep. Pete, who hadn’t slept but looked oddly refreshed, had the paper open – though Joe suspected only for the comics.

“Hey,” he smiled, leaning his head onto Pete’s shoulder and enjoying the feel of Pete’s fingers running lazily through his hair, missing occasionally and poking him in the forehead as he refused to look up from Peanuts. “Is it a good one?”

“It’s all about Snoopy. Snoopy’s way better than everyone else.”

Joe laughed into his skin, sliding an arm around his waist. “You’re a dork,” he murmured, and Pete did look down at him that time, grinning and shrugging.

Then Hemmy was waking up and moving to lay half on each of them, staring them down and obviously wanting attention. Joe pretended he didn’t notice until Hemmy got downright annoyed, pawing at his side, and they both grudgingly climbed out of bed and went to fetch the leash.

The sun was shining brightly now that the rain had stopped, and his arm felt warm in the summer heat as he swung their arms, hands clasped, back and forth. Pete was smiling at him, taking his time as Hemmy trudged along beside, getting himself muddy and stopping frequently to smell the wet grass or tree trunks.

Joe liked the way their hands felt together, and even after all these years it made him want to pull Pete in close and kiss him.

He hoped he’d remember that feeling, and maybe one day get it back.

“There’s something we need to talk about,” he said, and when Pete looked up at him with blinding trust, Joe wished he had someone there to tell him he was doing the right thing. For all of them.

\---

“Can we talk?” Jon had placed himself in front of the door, blocking the only exit, so he knew what the answer was going to be even before Ryan gave a hesitant nod, glancing at Brendon.

“I’ll meet you at home,” Brendon said, pulling Ryan into a long, hard hug. When they parted, Brendon was blushing, but he kept smiling even as he dashed around Jon to the outside, where the sun was now shining brightly in stark contrast to that morning.

Ryan paused before putting a hand on Jon’s shoulder and guiding him out the door.

“Don’t take him to the bar,” Vicky called over her shoulder as she swept the coble floors.

\---

Before they’d left for the day, Joe had told Patrick they didn’t have any tours the next day, so they were taking a day off. It meant Patrick got to lie in, but ultimately, there wasn’t much to entertain himself with at the B&B. Ryland and Alex were busy in the garden, though secretly Patrick thought even Ryland looked a bit bored, and the one channel that occasionally came through on the television wasn’t working at all today.

So, despite his better judgment, he went in to work anyway.

“The least I can do is get started on some of the photo identification for the season. I don’t think Pete’s even touched it since Joe got back,” he explained to Ryland and Alex as he leaned in the doorway to the backyard, squinting against the warm sun.

“You could stay,” Ryland said hopefully, as Alex handed him more seeds to plant. “We could play poker. Or someone left Twister here once.”

“He cheats,” Alex warned, elbowing him. “Besides, we’re gardening.”

Patrick shrugged helplessly at Ryland and then disappeared.

When he arrived at the garage at the pier that Pete and Joe had half-heartedly converted into an office, he found the three new recruits already seated around the desk, staring blearily down at photos of the minke whales that had arrived a month or two ago.

“We’re working,” one of the Mikes said quickly, lifting his head from where it had been resting against the table. “Really.”

“Shut up,” the other Mike, who Patrick was pretty sure Joe had nicknamed Jersey after the initial amusement over yelling “Mike!” and seeing them both scramble wore off, sighed. “This sucks.”

Patrick smirked and pulled up a chair to sit beside Cassadee, glancing over the photos. “No luck?”

“They all look the same,” Mike groaned, holding up two photos of dorsal fins. “We’re supposed to match these to old photos too? I can’t even differentiate one from another.”

Patrick squinted at two of the photos for a moment before making a match, Cassadee staring in awe. “You get used to it,” he said, laughing quietly. “Just wait until the fin whales get here later this month.”

“You’re so cool!” Cassadee grinned, grabbing two more photos to stare at them. “And like, a genius.”

Patrick laughed so hard his side hurt, but Cassadee just kept smiling through it, not the least bit deterred. And then she was asking questions about their breeding habits and size, and Patrick was happy to play the tour guide, even off the boat.

\---

The vines on Jon’s home had grown long in the summer months, and he’d long since stopped trimming the grass or plucking the weeds. Now, in the daylight, the entire thing looked as though it were being eaten alive by Mother Nature.

Jon almost felt ashamed of that, but Ryan just gave him a soft smile as he unlocked the door and moved into the kitchen to make them tea – coffee just felt too wrong, and he wanted to be sober for this conversation.

He glanced through the door to where Ryan lingered in his hallway, taking in the photos lined there, which were mostly of Spencer now.

“You’ve never been here, have you?” Jon asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping partway out of the kitchen while the water boiled.

Ryan shook his head slowly, still looking at the pictures. “It’s like he was leading a double life,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Yeah,” Jon agreed, slowly. “It was exactly like that.”

The house grew silent then, as Jon finished up the tea and Ryan continued his quiet trek through the halls, taking in artwork and likely noticing the way one of Spencer’s jackets still hung on the coat rack.

Jon brought out the tea when it was done, pouring them each a steaming cup and sitting down in one of the chairs facing the hallway. Ryan took the cup, but didn’t sit. He was twitching nervously, intent on something.

“I got scared,” Ryan said suddenly, closing his eyes.

Jon’s own narrowed a little in response. He didn’t want to be the one who Ryan got to clear his guilty conscience with. But when Ryan met his gaze again, Jon kept his mouth shut.

“A long time ago,” Ryan started again, his voice shaking, “Spencer had a boyfriend, Brent, and then Spence didn’t want to hang around anymore or… He got too busy.” He ran a hand through his hair, and Jon could see he looked nervous, but he still wasn’t certain why. “I hated myself for it, but I told Spencer we couldn’t be friends then, if he had a boyfriend. Because I didn’t think anyone could love two people. And I knew he’d pick me.”

“You suck,” Jon said, rather insightfully.

“That’s what Spencer said too, in Vegas.” Ryan closed his eyes, leaning against the wall. “He didn’t talk to me for a really long time when we left here. And I know… I fucked up. But you don’t know what we’ve been through. I didn’t want to risk losing him back then. And I thought we were over that. I didn’t know he’d go off and have some secret relationship.”

“Do you love him?” It seemed like the only rational explanation, even as Jon’s breath caught.

Ryan laughed, tilting his head forward. “No,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I’m just a really bad friend.”

“Did Spencer forgive you?”

“Mostly. I think.”

But then… “Why didn’t he come with you?”

Ryan moved to kneel in front of Jon, looking desperate for some sort of penance, like a scared Catholic schoolboy. The thought almost shook Jon out of his stupor, made him laugh, but in the end nothing came out of his mouth.

“I told you,” Ryan said slowly, gripping his hand. “He said he’d hurt you enough. He’s really, really sorry.”

Jon smiled sadly. “Not sorry enough to tell me himself?”

“He’s the best friend I’ve ever had,” Ryan sighed, leaning his head forward again before looking up and meeting Jon’s gaze. “But sometimes, he’s the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”

“That makes two of us.”

As far as consolation prizes went, Jon thought this one sucked.

\---

“Hey, sailor,” Greta called from the bar stool she was seated at, and Joe couldn’t help smiling. He always knew when she’d had a drink or three – she was a cute drunk, not a trashy one. The type to wrinkle her nose at you and hide her face behind her hands. And on the rare occasion when she had slightly too much, she always called him sailor.

“I’m not a sailor,” he argued, taking the seat next to her and pretending he didn’t notice the way their thighs touched for a moment.

“What are you?” she asked as she motioned for the barman, holding up two fingers, and whatever he brought back looked fruity and cold, which wasn’t Joe’s usual drink of choice, but he toasted her anyway and took a sip.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, laughing. “A failed rock star? A college dropout? A tour guide?”

She leaned closer, quirking one eyebrow. “That phrase never made sense to me. You’re not a guide like a pamphlet or a map. Aren’t you a… tour guider? Otherwise, instead of a grocer, I’d be… a grocery.”

Joe laughed again, surprised. “Any particular grocery? An orange, a can of soup?”

“No,” she shrugged, and the movement seemed over exaggerated, but she played it off well. “Just a grocery.”

“Alright then,” he said, raising his glass again. “To groceries and pamphlets.”

Greta nodded in agreement and took a large sip of whatever they were drinking. It tasted pretty good, at least.

“I’m recently single,” Joe announced, and for a moment, he really thought she was going to spit her drink on him. She recovered, only coughing for a good minute while he rubbed her back. He hadn’t quite meant for the words to come out that way – it was way too soon, but she wouldn’t remember this. The last part he spoke aloud.

She clearly recovered enough to hit his arm, straightening. “I’m not that drunk!” she argued, before grinning. “Maybe I am. But you’re not single.”

“I am,” he protested. “Free as a bird, as a kite, as a… what else are free?”

“Water is free,” Greta offered. “Tap, anyway.”

Joe laughed, nodding. “I’m as free as tap water, then.”

There was an awkward moment when the laughter died down and they stared at each other, not quite knowing what to do. And then Joe was worried she might be sick on him, and really, these tennis shoes were kind of cool.

Instead, though, she seemed to have a moment of clarity. “What do we do from here?”

Joe plucked a pen from his pocket and took her cocktail napkin, scribbling the words ‘COME W/JOE & PETE TO LA” in blotty letters across it and tucking it inside her purse. “Just don’t lose your purse tonight, okay?” he asked slowly. “It’s important.”

She nodded as though she understood, and he took another sip from his drink while she smiled around her straw at him.

\---

Patrick knew something was up for at least two weeks before anyone actually told him anything. He’d barely been paying attention on the tour, content to let Joe handle most of the tourist’s questions since he’d been doing it all spring, but he did overhear a young woman asking, rather non-subtly, “So are there any nice single men out here?”

“Of course,” Joe said, flashing her a smile. “I’m one of them.”

Patrick turned so fast to stare at him that he almost lost his balance, and Joe stared back, seeming confused. Pete ducked quickly into the wheelhouse, hiding his face.

“What?” he mouthed to Joe, but his friend just shrugged helplessly and nodded.

Then one of the tourists spotted a curious group of harbor porpoises, bobbing their heads out of the water and swimming alongside the boat. Patrick had to explain how they were some of the smallest of the porpoises, how fishing nets often entangled them and left their species severely endangered and how in a week in Southern California they’d be seeing an even more endangered species of porpoise, the Vaquita.

Finally, when the onslaught of questions seemed to reach a standstill, Patrick politely excused himself to the wheel house.

Pete was driving the boat, very intently, and continued to stare straight ahead. But Patrick wasn’t new to this – they weren’t even going at full speed, and they were in open water now, not near any of the islands or rocks. This was usually the time he’d have let the five-year-old boy on board steer.

He stepped as close to Pete as he could get, waiting, but Pete refused to look up. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” Pete asked, and he had the nerve to sound chipper. Patrick never wanted to punch something so much in his life.

“Did you two break up?”

The moment of hesitation was really all the answer he needed, but Pete nodded his head slowly, still not meeting his gaze.

Patrick took in a deep breath. “When?”

“Three weeks.”

Patrick reached out then to strike Pete’s arm, and Pete winced, pulling back and rubbing at the spot. This time, he did meet Patrick’s eyes. “Hey! That hurt!”

“Good,” Patrick said, crossing his arms.

Pete grumbled, still rubbing at the spot. “Maybe I deserved it,” he muttered, almost too low for Patrick to hear.

Some of Patrick’s anger deflated, but not all of it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Pete slumped against the wheel, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You leave in a week,” he sighed. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

Patrick didn’t wait to hear more, just walked back out onto the boat and instantly launched into a well-practiced speech about the dangers of sonar to ocean life.

\---

One of the Mikes, Jersey, had let it slip that he was good with numbers, and that had been the end of anyone else handling the preparations for the LA trip. It almost seemed cruel to Patrick, considering none of the new recruits got to go, having to stay in Ireland to continue counting seals and dolphins and matching dorsal fins, but he kept his mouth shut and packed his belongings.

“Do you need any help?” Alex had asked that morning, peering in on him. He could see Ryland hovering behind, and they both wanted so desperately to do anything that he let them carry down his suitcases and didn’t protest at all when Alex insisted they all have breakfast before he drove Patrick all the way to the airport, where the tour group was meeting.

There was a long and drawn out goodbye after they’d checked in his bags, in which Ryland promised him a free room any time he came back, and Alex made him swear he’d come back at all. But then they were gone, and Patrick found himself sitting outside with Jersey, who had gotten the bus earlier that morning.

“You’d have thought they could have given me a lift,” Jersey muttered when Pete and Joe finally pulled up in their Jeep, rousing the other Mike who had clearly been asleep in the back seat and handing him the car keys. “He got a ride.”

“We like him more. He’s Original Mike,” Pete said, beaming.

Patrick sort of doubted that when he saw Mike begin unloading their huge luggage and dragging it inside, but Joe nodded drearily, wandering inside.

“Bring two coffees,” Patrick called after him, and he thought he saw a weak thumbs up in his general direction.

Pete hopped down on the curb beside Jersey, smiling at him. “So, who’s on board with us today?”

“Uh.” Jersey fumbled through his backpack before producing a ledger. “Colligan, Cash,” Jersey said, pronouncing the word comma, which made Pete giggle and Patrick wish Joe would just hurry up with the coffee already. “Crawford, Ian. DeLeon, Alex. Johnson, Alex. Marshall, Alex.”

“We’re never going to remember that,” Pete said, and Patrick didn’t doubt how serious he was.

“And,” Jersey said, voice raising over Pete’s, “Salpeter –”

“Comma Greta,” she announced herself, and Jersey looked mildly annoyed that she had stolen his thunder, but she didn’t seem to notice. Greta stopped in front of Pete, blocking his sunlight. She smiled brightly down at him, her sun dress billowing in the cool morning air.

Pete squinted up at her, frowning. “You’re coming?”

Joe chose then to return with the coffee, and Patrick reached for his cup, but Joe saw Greta and sidestepped him, offering it to her instead. Patrick frowned.

“Greta!” Whatever remnants of drowsiness that had been present only a moment before suddenly vanished from Joe.

“I’m here,” she nodded, and the cool façade looked like it was slipping for a moment before he pulled her into a hug, spinning her around, her dress dancing in the air.

“You knew?” Pete looked affronted, but Joe just laughed, glancing at him over her shoulder.

“Didn’t you? Her name’s been on the ledger for a month.”

Pete turned to Jersey for confirmation, and he threw up his arms and nodded. If Pete accosted him, Patrick didn’t wait to find out – somewhere in this airport there was a cup of coffee with his name on it.

\---

The five passengers for their tour, it turned out, were all originally from Vegas (except maybe for one, though which one, Patrick couldn’t have told you) and had spent two months backpacking throughout Europe. This was their flight home, but they wanted one last hurrah before – so they’d decided to join the whale watching expedition after being on one of the tours.

All of this, and more, was recounted to Patrick at the gate while Joe got bagels with Greta and Pete went to stock up on candy before the long flight. He’d never have guessed it, but Pete was clearly terrified of flying if the way he kept pacing back and forth down the very long terminal was any indication. He’d been fine until they got through security, but now he was a wreck.

“We’re in a band. Want to listen?” Ian asked him, smiling hopefully and producing two earbuds and his iPod player. Patrick smiled gratefully for the distraction and plugged them in, leaning his head back and letting the music wash over him.

When someone came and sat beside him, Patrick didn’t think much of it, until they started poking him repeatedly. He sighed, not opening his eyes. “Go away, Pete.”

“Patrick,” he whined, and for the briefest of moments, Patrick felt like he was in another, easier time.

He opened one eye, and Pete looked jittery and anxious, his skin paled as his hands shook at his side. Patrick reached out and grasped at his hand, squeezing tightly. “It’s just a plane,” he said, and Pete nodded slowly.

“I think I’m hallucinating,” he sighed, leaning his head onto Patrick’s shoulder. It hurt to know that Patrick didn’t want to push him off.

“Hallucinating?”

“I swear I see Jon Walker sitting by Greta and Joe,” he sighed, closing his eyes. “Clearly, I’m hallucinating.”

Patrick glanced around until he saw them, and then he smiled a little, nudging Pete. “You aren’t hallucinating. That is Jon Walker.”

“Oh,” Pete sighed, closing his eyes. “That’s sort of better then.”

\---

“I missed Starbucks,” Jon whispered to Patrick, some two hours into their very long flight. Joe had made him trade seats so he could sit with Greta, which left Patrick wedged between a very fidgety Pete, and for once, an equally fidgety Jon. He was going to strangle Joe if he made it off this plane alive.

“Yeah?” Patrick asked, wondering if conversation might calm Jon’s nerves. Or even Patrick’s own, as anything had to be better than suffering through the romantic comedy playing again, or Pete singing the theme song to The Flinstones over and over in his ear until Patrick had finally banished him to wander the aisles and find an empty seat, or prepare to die. “You know there are Starbucks in Ireland, right?”

He nodded. “But it’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same, that’s why it’s a chain. It’s like McDonalds.”

Jon shook his head and smiled. “Theirs has curly fries, ours doesn’t.”

“Starbucks doesn’t,” Patrick countered, and Jon seemed to give up easily enough, his shoulders falling back into the backrest.

He remained lost in his thoughts and Patrick picked up the in-flight magazine to kill another 30 minutes of boredom when Jon asked, “Why aren’t you dating Pete?”

Patrick looked up, startled. “What?”

“Well, he and Joe broke up, didn’t they?” Jon looked completely calm now, leaning back into his seat and eyeing Patrick with a curious, but lazy, look. “So why aren’t you two together?”

“Why are you on this plane?”

“Greta told me to come,” Jon answered simply, shrugging. “I’m going to win Spencer back. She didn’t believe I’d get on the plane.”

“But here you are,” Patrick observed, and even to his own ears, it sounded dumb.

Jon nodded. “Here we both are. We’ve established why I’m here, now how about you?”

Patrick motioned to the empty seat beside him, still indented from where Pete had been just a few minutes ago, before he’d disappeared to… wherever it was he had gone to stop annoying Patrick. “I’m here for work. And to go home.”

“You didn’t have to go home,” Jon said. “You’re choosing to go home.”

“I think my student visa expiration date would argue with you.”

“Ryan came back,” he countered, leaning closer. “No pattern or action in human behavior is random.”

Patrick smiled, finally opening the in-flight magazine. “What book did you find that in, Jon?”

“I read it in a magazine,” he laughed. “But it still holds true. They broke up, but you’re leaving anyway. None of that is random or fate. We make our decisions.”

He hesitated, because it felt like a cheap shot. But he didn’t mean it that way at all. “Then… if Spencer left, wasn’t that his choice?”

Jon beamed, his teeth flashing even under the dim book-reading lights. “The wrong one. That’s where I come in.”

Patrick grinned without looking up from the magazine. “If you say so, Jon,” he said, and began to skim a section on Chicago, wondering why it didn’t make him feel homesick.

\---

Ryan had bought a hammock off one of the vacationers visiting the gallery, and Brendon sat in a chair on the back porch of his tiny cabin, watching Ryan struggle with it, for the better part of an hour.

“I will get this,” Ryan insisted, and Brendon nodded like he believed him, even if he was secretly keeping track of the time and giggling into his cup of lemonade every 20 minutes or so that went by.

It was almost scorching hot out, the way it had been back home in Vegas. Brendon could feel his own t-shirt sticking to his skin, and the way his hair felt damp and heavy. Ryan’s own hair was a tangled mess, sticking up at odd angles in the heat and from his dealings with the hammock, but Brendon thought he looked gorgeous anyway.

“Maybe we should call someone,” he said, as the third hour was fast approaching.

“Like who?”

Brendon began to tick off people on his fingers. “Pete, Patrick and Joe are gone. They took Jon. And Greta. No to Vicky.”

“No to Vicky,” Ryan echoed, straightening and running a hand through his hair. “Do we know anyone else?”

“Spencer isn’t here,” Brendon said, leaning back. “I don’t think we know anyone at all.”

But Ryan was desperate enough to call Spencer, and he disappeared into the house for a few minutes in search of water while Spencer supposedly looked up diagrams on the internet on the other end of the line.

\---

“Do you have a place chosen to hang it up?” Spencer read off into receiver, and Ryan sighed, blowing air onto his forehead, but his hair didn’t move at all. It was a lost cause by now.

“Yes,” he muttered.

“Okay, good. Do you have a hanging kit?”

Ryan frowned. “What’s that?”

“A hanging kit. I’m assuming a kit for hanging up the hammock…”

“Yes, thank you.”

From his position in the chair, Brendon wagged a finger at him, looking entirely too amused. “Do you need to be separated?”

“We are,” Ryan argued. “By a very large ocean.”

“A lot of good that’s done,” Brendon and Spencer said, simultaneously, and it made Ryan’s head spin a little.

“Shut up,” he said, to no one in particular. “Will anything other than a hanging kit work?”

“Do you have rope?” Spencer asked. “And if the answer is yes, how are your sailor knots?”

“Take a guess,” Ryan sighed, leaning his head back.

“What were you using to hang this thing up with anyway?”

“Nails,” Ryan answered hesitantly. “And sheer willpower.”

There was a crackle on the other end, and Ryan swore he could hear Spencer laughing under it. “Call Gabe,” Spencer said after a moment. “I have a feeling he’s good with tying things up,” and really, that made Ryan wince, but Gabe was nice enough to do it for free. “But first, tell me about Ireland.”

“It’s fucking hot,” Ryan groaned.

This time, it was Spencer’s turn to say, “Shut up. You’re not in Nevada.”

Of course he had a point. The sweat pouring down his back didn’t really agree that it was a good one, though. “You could have come.”

Spencer was quiet for a moment that stretched on just a little too long, and Ryan had to bite his tongue to keep from mentioning anything about Jon’s plans. If things were going to work out, they’d work out on their own. He was done meddling. “I miss you,” Spencer said instead, and Ryan breathed easier.

“I miss you too, Spence.”

\---

When Pete finally settled into the seat beside him again, Patrick cast him with a dark look. “Are you done being a 4-year-old?”

“Never,” he announced, proudly, but he leaned into Patrick a little. It was such a stark contrast to the weeks before, when they’d each been avoiding each other at every turn, even refusing to stand next to each other on longer tours. “But,” he started again, slower, “I’ll try.”

“Thank you.” Patrick opened a book Jon had loaned him, and for a time, it seemed as if Pete was going to keep to his promise.

Then he was twisting in his seat, glancing back at their five Vegas guests, and then settling on Joe and Greta.

“Is it weird?” he asked suddenly, turning back around. “That I’m not more bothered?”

“By?” Patrick kept his eyes on the book in front of him, though he couldn’t remember a word he’d just read.

Pete leaned his head back. “By Joe being all over Greta.”

Well. Patrick had maybe thought that was a bit weird. “They aren’t all over each other,” he argued. “I don’t even think he’s kissed her.”

“Same difference. Should I be bothered?”

Sighing, Patrick did lift his head up. Pete looked tired, but not the kind where Joe would whisper Pete hadn’t slept at all the night before, so watch his driving, before a tour. Not even the kind he had looked those first few days after Joe left, or for that matter, came back. This was different.

“You feel what you feel,” he said, and hesitantly put a hand over Pete’s.

Pete seemed to take that as a green light for more, and he curled into Patrick’s side as best as he could considering the airplane seats. “I’m sad,” he said, quietly. “But not as sad as I thought I’d be. And that makes me sadder.”

Patrick smiled into his hair, brushing his lips against his forehead. “Don’t be sad.”

Behind them, a roar of laughter sprung up, and they both turned to look at the Vegas boys. Ian had stolen one of the Alex’s rubber bracelets and he and Cash were tossing them into the laps of passengers, watching their confused faces. Pete smiled and moved back to join them, and whatever had just happened between Pete and Patrick seemed to be gone now.

“Thanks,” Patrick muttered to no one in particular, and went back to trying to read the book.

\---

San Diego was pretty much as Patrick remembered it from lazy day trips up with Frank. He’d never liked it much, except for its music scene. But time hadn’t stopped in his wake, and it was almost a relief to finally step foot on steady ground and know (almost) exactly where he was.

Jon disappeared, though Greta said he was going to catch a connecting flight, and Patrick only felt a little guilty that he hadn’t gotten to say goodbye at all. He liked Jon. But then there were bags to be collected, the driver of the bus Pete had hired had to be tracked down from his “smoke break”. Patrick didn’t think that was really a cigarette in Alex the driver’s hand, and when Joe said he was a reference and a friend of the Mikes, Patrick was even more certain.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked, frowning at Pete.

“Monterey Bay,” Patrick answered for him as he walked past, taking a seat all the way in the back. He could feel Pete’s eyes on him, but by the time he’d taken a seat where he could see him again, Pete was sitting with Joe, chatting about the itinerary of the tour.

\---

Honestly, Patrick didn’t know why they didn’t just fly into San Francisco, but Pete had insisted it made sense at the time. Even a day later, though, Patrick was still feeling the seven hour bus ride that had followed the 11 hour flight.

But he somehow managed to drag himself from his comfortable hotel bed to out front, where most of the tour group was already waiting, sans their guides. It wasn’t until Alex DeLeon waved to him and said, “So, do we get like, itineraries?” that he even remembered he was supposed to be one of the tour guides too.

“Uh,” he mumbled, looking around. “Let me find you one.”

He didn’t have copies, but he let them pass his own around, smiling tiredly at the group. “We’re going to the aquarium today, it’s cooler than it sounds.”

“I thought we were seeing real fish,” Cash spoke up from the back, and beside him, Alex Marshall rolled his eyes.

“They don’t stuff fish at aquariums. They’re still real,” Alex muttered.

“In the ocean, then.” Cash crossed his arms.

“Yes,” Patrick agreed. “After the aquarium and lunch, we’re meeting up with some local crew and they’re going to take us out and see the Pacific Ocean. And some dolphins.”

“Pink dolphins?” Alex Marshall smiled hopefully, while Cash snickered into his hand.

“Maybe,” Patrick said slowly. “You’ll have to ask our Captain.”

\---

Pete had conducted the tour of the aquarium on-the fly (with the exception of the penguins, which Joe led the discussion and an intense question-and-answer session on rather passionately). Pete’s tour, meanwhile, mostly involved making things up, as Joe snickered beside him, but most of their tourists looked suitably impressed.

Greta kept by his side, looking for his assistance every time Pete would say something off the wall, and he’d nod or shake his head in response. Mostly, he was shaking his head, but even he was surprised Pete knew so much about the seahorses from around the globe exhibit.

“See the fat one? She’s not pregnant, or a she at all. This guy’s a Potbelly Seahorse, and his big gut attracts females. Think it would work for me?”

“Really?” Greta whispered, and smiling, Patrick nodded.

“Really.”

\---

The house didn’t look much like Jon had really imagined. In his mind, though, it was a dark, twisted place that had lured Spencer into its clutches and refused to let him go. So maybe in his mind houses really did have personalities.

But this was quiet and quaint, on a suburban street and with a flowerbed out front, though they looked deceivingly plastic.

This was the kind of a house that people came home to, not that they were willing to leave entirely to uproot and move to Ireland for some stupid boy who liked his camera almost as much as he liked his coffee.

It zapped the confidence right out of Jon, and he stood in the middle of the street where the taxi had dropped him off, staring up at the house and trying to remember any of the dozens of speeches he’d been practicing in his head for months.

He never even got up the courage to knock, as Spencer opened the front door and stepped out, staring at him like he was seeing a ghost. Maybe they both were. “Jon?”

“Your hair got long,” Jon said, and wished he had better lines.

Spencer’s hands went instinctively to his hair, but he lowered them slowly and crossed his arms, staring Jon down.

“Um,” Jon started again, taking a few hesitant steps forward. “I flew.” Really, this was not at all how he’d wanted this conversation to go. “On a plane,” he corrected.

“I guessed,” Spencer said, his expression unreadable, and Jon kind of hated him for that. If he was angry, or didn’t love Jon anymore, if he could just say that now and save Jon any further embarrassment… But he didn’t want Spencer to say that. He wanted Spencer to be smiling and running toward him in slow motion, like in all the movies. But Spencer was neither smiling nor in slow motion.

“Yeah,” Jon said again, dumbly. “I had to. You left.”

Spencer was fidgeting on the steps, but Jon didn’t know what that meant. What any of this meant. “My student visa ran out.”

“Ryan came back, but you didn’t come with him.” He was sounding less like an idiot now, but Spencer was still completely unreadable, his expression blank.

“Ryan had a boyfriend. We broke up, Jon. You should go home.”

Jon’s heart felt like a block of cement, weighing him down, slowly choking. Or maybe he was nine years old again, that winter he’d fallen through the ice and watched the world in slow-motion, slowly fading to black, but this time there was no security guard to fish him out and yell at him for being on the ice in the first place.

Spencer turned to go back inside, and somewhere in Jon’s head, a light bulb switched on. “Fuck you,” he said, and it was the clearest, loudest thing he’d said all day.

Spencer turned back to look at him, curious.

“You heard me,” Jon said, moving forward now, until he was only a few inches away from Spencer. “Fuck you.”

Something in Spencer’s expression twitched, but it refused to give him a real expression.

“Fuck you,” Jon said again, slowly. “Fuck you for not trusting Ryan that he’d be okay about us, and fuck you for never giving us a real chance, and fuck you for saying you loved me back and then leaving.” His voice was getting louder with each word, until he was certain the neighbors were peeking through their curtains at them. “Fuck you for leaving, and fuck you for not coming back. And fuck you for telling Ryan it was for my own good. Because you know what, Spencer? You don’t know a goddamn thing about what’s good for me, because if you did, you’d never have done any of those things. So fuck you.”

“Are you done?” Spencer asked.

Jon took in a sharp breath. “Give me a minute and I’ll think of some more.”

This time when something twitched in Spencer’s expression, it led to a smile. It was small, but it started to spread, and Jon felt his own facial muscles twitching to mirror the action. Spencer started to laugh, closing his eyes, and Jon couldn’t help but join in, though he didn’t even know why he was laughing. He couldn’t stop until there were tears streaming out of his eyes, Spencer leaning against him for support as they both laughed, loudly, shaking with the action.

“I’d say I’m an idiot,” Spencer said, grinning at him with a little more reserve, “but I think you already know that.”

“There’s always room for improvement.”

“Or coffee. Is there room for coffee?” Spencer was watching him with wide, hopeful eyes now as he held open the front door to his house, an obvious invitation to Jon.

“Always,” Jon whispered, and he followed Spencer in.

\---

It amazed Patrick how must he’d missed the ocean, even in just a few short days. Stepping onto the pier was nothing like stepping onto dry land had been like when they’d gotten off the airplane. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.

“This is the pier,” he said, turning around when he could feel eyes on him. Joe had returned to the back of the group, where and Greta were sharing a can of Coke and it looked like he was mocking her giant sun hat. “Where we’ll be meeting our two local captains.”

“Do we get to see dolphins now?” Alex Marshall asked, smiling brightly at him.

“In a minute.” He glanced around to see where Pete had gone, hopefully in search of whatever crew was here. Pete had claimed to know them, and the boat, but if it was anything like his aquarium-tour skills, Patrick had doubts.

But a few yards down on the pier Pete stood beside a boat, waving them on. Patrick motioned in his direction and then began to lead the group along. “We’re going to be riding the, uh,” he paused, glancing at the name scrawled on the back of the boat, and rolled his eyes, “Enterprise today, so be nice to your crew. They can, and if they’re anything like our crew, will throw you overboard.”

Joe gave a loud whoop of applause from the back.

“Welcome!” Pete called when they got close, motioning them on board.

It was much bigger than their catamaran, and more suited for tours. There were two levels, and the bottom had a door open leading to tables and an open bar, along with snacks. The top was more for observation – there were benches for seating and open areas, and the wheel house was tucked off to the right.

It was much more commercial, but then, Patrick supposed demand was greater out here. He could see Pete and Joe looking a little jealous as they eyed the boat up and down.

Their captains looked nothing like what Patrick had imagined. Two men, both only wearing shorts, came out of the mini-bar area and introduced themselves as Adam T. Siska and Andrew Mrotek, though, “Call us Sisky and Butcher. It’s easier,” Adam said, and there was murmured agreement among their passengers.

“This is the Enterprise,” Adam continued, making easy strides across the deck. He easily towered over any of them. “Don’t trash her, we sleep here sometimes.”

It was just like a tour with Pete and Joe.

Butcher led the tour group up top and began to give them a brief history of the bay area while Sisky took Joe, Pete and Patrick into the wheelhouse – likely to impress them with their top of the line radar equipment.

They were all definitely impressed.

“This is so cool,” Pete whispered. “Is it a touch screen?”

“Yep,” Sisky grinned.

“I love touch screens!”

“What’s it’s range like?” Patrick asked, mostly ignoring Pete.

Sisky shrugged. “Depends on what you’re tracking. For a whale, pretty good, about ten miles. For smaller things, unless they’re in big groups, maybe two.”

Patrick nodded and watched as Pete continued to poke at the radar, laughing every time it beeped in annoyance at him.

It was strange, being on someone else’s boat, in someone else’s bay, getting a tour. But once they left the pier and headed into open water, Patrick found it easy enough to slip onto one of the benches beside Greta, binoculars in hand, scanning the water.

“Anything?” she asked hopefully, leaning closer.

“Not yet,” he admitted.

Pete must have gotten bored of the touch screen radar, as he came and took the seat next to Patrick – close enough that he could feel Pete’s breath on the back of his neck. He refused to turn around, though.

“Some fishermen spotted a blue whale,” Pete said, wistful. “We’re hoping we can track her. But if not, there’s been lots of minke and a few gray left. They even had some transient Orcas.”

“And dolphins,” Patrick nodded. “There’s always dolphins. By the hundred.”

“Not much like home,” Pete said, and Patrick shook his head, even if he didn’t know which home Pete meant.

\---

The dolphins, as predicted, were the easiest to find. They were almost impossible to miss, actually.

“There!” Butcher said, pointing to the horizon. At first it hadn’t looked like much, but as they approached, there was a group of around 50 Pacific White Sided and Risso Dolphins.

“You can tell them apart because the Pacific have white stripes on their side,” Butcher explained as everyone on board got out their digital cameras.

Not to be outdone, Pete stood up. “The Risso’s also move a lot slower. The Pacifics will be the ones whipping through, but the Risso’s raise their dorsal fins for a few seconds before lowering them again.”

The closer they approached, the more it appeared there were. The Risso Dolphins would all rise up, as though in sync, with just their fins sticking out and move a few inches before disappearing again.

“It looks like thousands of baby Jaws are coming for us,” Ian grinned, and Greta hit his arm.

“Cool, though, isn’t it?” Pete asked, and he was looking right at Patrick as he asked. There wasn’t much else to do but nod.

It was cool.

\---

“My coffee’s not as good as yours,” Spencer warned, sitting so close to Jon on the sofa that their thighs touched. Jon wanted to reach out and touch him, for real, but he didn’t know what anything meant still. An invitation into Spencer’s house didn’t mean an invitation back into Spencer’s life.

“It’s okay,” he promised, and took a slow sip.

“You really flew all the way out here?”

Jon glanced around the house before looking back at Spencer. “Well… Yeah.”

“Why?”

Jon wanted to laugh again, hysterically. “You’re an absolute idiot, Spencer Smith.”

Spencer nodded. “Fuck me. I heard.”

“No.” Jon shook his head, gripping the cup of coffee tighter in his hand. “I’m in love with you.”

“Even though I’m an idiot?”

Jon nodded slowly, and this was it – the moment of truth. He’d laid his cards on the table, and he didn’t have any more tricks up his sleeve. “Even though you’re the biggest idiot I know.”

“Fuck you,” Spencer said, setting his coffee down on the table in front of them. When he turned back, his eyes were wide and bright, softening a little. “I’m sorry for leaving. I was mad, and crazy, and it was too much at once…”

He couldn’t take it. “Spencer,” Jon sighed. “I love you. Do you love me?”

“Oh.” Spencer looked startled, then he laughed, and Jon felt the cement block in his chest lifting off some of the pressure. “Yes. I love you too. That’s why I stayed gone, I thought you knew that.”

“Fuck you,” Jon said, but he was laughing, and leaning forward. Spencer met him halfway for the first, but not the last, time – and Jon felt sparks shooting up his spine, the stars aligning, and for a moment, maybe they moved in slow motion just like in all the movies.

\---

They spotted one Fin whale and two Gray, but there were no Blues to be found. Still, it wasn’t a completely wasted day. The tour seemed happy with the dolphins, especially after they’d found a pod of about 200 Common Dolphins and another of around 100 Bottlenose, and Andy promised they’d try again the next day.

It was still almost 10 at night before Patrick got off the boat, as he, Pete and Joe had stuck around to help clean and tie her down, and when Sisky had suggested a celebratory drink for their first real day in the country, well, it had been hard to turn down.

“I think I’m going,” Joe said, smiling sheepishly, and Pete laughed beside him and pushed him.

“I know you’re going to Greta’s room. It’s okay, really.”

Joe hesitated, but the two embraced briefly before Joe was hurrying off toward their hotel, disappearing past the lamplights.

“Well,” Pete said, putting his hands in his pockets and swaying a little. “I guess it’s just you and me. Hungry?”

Patrick glanced around the empty pier and considered trekking back to the hotel alone, for cold and overpriced room service. “If you’re buying.”

There were plenty of good seafood restaurants dotting the area, but Patrick always felt weird about eating fish after they’d been staring at them all day, and Pete seemed to remember this as he led them to the one non-seafood-themed restaurant he could spy – a cheesy American diner, complete with checkered floors and red booths.

“7 AM crew call tomorrow,” Pete said, sliding down into one side of the booth. He looked older now, so exhausted from the long day. Patrick remembered waking up some mornings to find this Pete staring back at him, sleep-deprived and world-weary, but usually his eyes were still smiling. They weren’t now.

“It won’t be so bad,” Patrick said, leaning back. “We can go to bed right after this.”

Pete laughed.

“Well,” Patrick sighed, “I can go to bed. You can pretend.”

“I hate sleeping alone,” Pete said suddenly, leaning closer. “I haven’t done it in so long.”

“I thought you and Joe broke up awhile –” Patrick started, but Pete looked almost startled, shaking his head.

“Hemingway,” he corrected, and oh. Right. “I took the guest bed a month ago. Even here, we’ve all got our own rooms now. Everything falls apart.” Patrick barely knew what Pete was talking about, but he lowered the menu, watching him. Pete wasn’t jittery, but rather overly subdued – staring back at Patrick with an unreadable expression. “Everyone’s alone.”

Patrick slid over in the seat and moved his menu with him, a silent invitation. There was no hesitation from Pete, as he moved to sit beside him, a huddled mess. Patrick reached out to rest a hand on Pete’s own, cold one.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Patrick frowned in confusion, but a waitress brought them water and began to take their order.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Pete asked suddenly once she was gone, and Patrick felt his stomach flip. Pete looked small and lost, though, like a child.

“Okay,” he said, quietly. “If you won’t kick.”

\---

Pete didn’t sleep through the night at all, but Patrick felt and heard his breathing even out somewhere around 3 AM. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness himself, too wound up and not quite exhausted enough to just pass out.

When 6:30 AM rolled around, it was a whole different story. But Pete was already up and dressed, and he pressed a cup of freshly-bought Starbucks into Patrick’s hands silently before making his side of the bed and disappearing. Patrick was too tired to even thank him, but he thought it.

Adam and Andy were too awake for Patrick’s tastes, but Joe looked like he hadn’t fared much better – he barely had one eye open when he wandered up, so they put him on duty of restocking the mini-bar.

Pete and Adam tested the boat’s various gears and functions, while Patrick and Andy took to pulling up the anchor and untying her. “Today might be the day,” Andy said, tossing Patrick a part of the rope which he promptly dropped, but tried to recover. “For the Blue Whale, I mean. We don’t get many, but they’re gorgeous.”

“I’ve never seen one,” Patrick admitted, trying to wrap the rope, but he didn’t think he was doing it right. “We mostly get humpback, some minke and fin.”

“Aren’t you from San Diego?” he asked. “Joe said you were just there for the internship program, you’re back here now.”

Patrick had been trying not to think about that part. He didn’t want to really consider that in just a few days, Pete and Joe would be flying back to Ireland, while he stayed in San Diego. “To finish my degree,” he said, not looking up.

“Well.” Andy was smiling at him, tossing him the rest of the rope. “When you finish with that, we’re always looking for good tour guides.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised.

\---

Morning was always a better time for marine tours. He tried explaining as much to their sleepy-eyed passengers, but no one really believed him until they started noticing how much more awake everything in the water was. They spotted two gray whales within the first hour, and he and Pete even found two large pods of Pacific White Dolphins before even Andy, Adam or their high-tech radar could.

“Binoculars are good for some things,” Joe said, sticking his tongue out at Adam.

“You didn’t find them,” Adam muttered.

They even dipped closer to the shoreline, where many of the Harbor and Califoria Seals and Sea Lions were swimming about or lounging in the sun.

Pete stuck by him for most of the morning, and as the day wore on, his mood seemed to improve. Patrick was glad for the change, and after a few hours, even whispered, “Hey, thanks for the Starbucks,” and watched as Pete flushed and shrugged.

They were almost ready to head back to shore for lunch and some light shopping at Cannery Row when something flashed on Adam’s radar.

“What is it?” Pete asked, peering closer to the screen.

“I don’t know,” Adam said, turning the boat toward the signal. “But let’s find out.”

Patrick claimed the left side of the boat all to himself, scanning the top of the water for any signs – when Joe joined him. “Did you get banished?” Patrick asked, glancing at him over his shoulder.

Joe laughed, shrugging. “Maybe. I’m kind of useless on these things.”

“Me too.” Patrick offered him the binoculars, but Joe shook his head. He hesitated. “They actually offered me a job, though. When I finish school.”

“Yeah?” Joe moved to stand beside him, and the wind was getting stronger, whipping against them as the boat jetted further out to sea, the shoreline disappearing in the distance. “Me too.”

“Really?”

Joe blinked and then shook his head. “No.” He paused, then laughed. “Not like, these guys. I, um, I got offered a job back home. Home, as in, Chicago. At Shedd Aquarium, they want a new director for the penguin exhibit.”

“That’s sort of your dream job, isn’t it?”

“It’s a zoo,” Joe said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I kind of like the outdoors. Or maybe… I don’t. Maybe I’ve just never worked anything else.”

Patrick turned to look at him properly, and something in his expression was hardened – determined. “You’re going.”

Joe closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath, his expression shifting from confident to shaken. “I haven’t told anyone else yet, not even Pete.”

“You have to,” Patrick said, quietly.

“I know.” Joe smiled sadly, looking out at the open ocean. “When I first found him, in Ireland, we said… We agreed we didn’t know where our lives were going. We found some environmental group willing to pay us to do water sampling and stuff, and said in two years, when we got some money, we’d go do research in Antarctica. Live in an igloo, whatever. But it’s been five years. And I love him, but…” He trailed off, shrugging helplessly. “A fresh start. If I stay in Ireland, I’ll never get over him or move on. He wants other stuff now, too. He just doesn’t know how to say it.”

“You’ll be a great penguin… person. What do you do with penguins, anyway?”

Joe laughed, and he pulled Patrick into a tight hug. “I will be a great penguin person.”

\---

Shopping had been more fun than Patrick really anticipated. While he tended to loathe typical American stores, Cannery Row wasn’t really filled with outlet names – and he had been gone so long that the shoe stores had him just barely clinging to his wallet. There were also several off-beat things which kept himself, and Pete, thoroughly amused.

“There’s a Hello Kitty store,” Pete hissed into his ear, tugging on his arm.

“No.” Patrick was definitely firm on this once.

“Himalayan Gifts?”

“There’s a magic shop, that should entertain you.”

He caught Joe and Greta eating sushi at one of the restaurants, and they waved to them, though it was awkward and stilted. Patrick wondered if there was ever a good way to see your ex eating out with someone else, but Pete seemed to take it in stride.

They found a vinyl store further down the path, just past the outlet mall, and this time Patrick’s wallet didn’t remain so firmly in tact. He couldn’t help it when they had rare Michael Jackson and Funk Brothers, all in one place. Pete resisted their temptations, but he wasn’t so lucky when it came to the Candy Factory.

“You’ll never eat all that,” Patrick said warily as they left the store, but Pete cackled.

“Watch and learn, young padawan.”

Pete tried to tempt him with some kayaking, but the joke fell flat, and in the end they settled for sitting on some rocks in the marine sanctuary, watching otters scurrying about, used to humans and very unlike the ones back in Ireland.

“Think they’d like chocolate?” Pete asked, chewing loudly on a piece.

“Or it might kill them…”

Pete considered, then scrunched up his nose. “You might be right. Want a piece?” He held out one to Patrick, who hesitated before taking it. Pete tracked his motion, rolling his eyes. “You’re not fat,” he said, even though Patrick hadn’t spoken his thoughts out loud. “You’re sexy.”

Patrick shut up and ate the chocolate, but he did make a face at Pete.

“I could live here,” Pete said, leaning back. “But I like Ireland more.”

“Do you ever think you’ll leave?”

“I don’t know,” Pete said after a long moment. “It gets a little easier to come here, every year.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, taking another piece of chocolate. “I get that.”

\---

Patrick had always been more of the indoors-type as a child. He loved animals, and as he got older, he’d developed a great love for the ocean, but his youth had still been spent mostly curled up with books or music rather than camping outside with friends.

He imagined, though, that if he had been that type, the scene would have looked something like this.

Pete had spent a very long time building their fire, stacking up the wood over the pit and then adding twigs and bits of dried seaweed they found, even as Joe sat by, laughing and telling him he was doing it wrong.

“It’s going to work!” Pete argued, and he knelt with a box of matches for the better part of an hour before Joe took pity on him and took over completely, rearranging the pit and lighting the twigs and an old newspaper he found in the trash. This time, it caught.

“Told you,” Joe grinned, while Pete sat alone, arms crossed and glaring at him over the slowly rising smoke.

“Fire!” Ian shouted from the water, turning and running back to shore. Alex Johnson followed, but the rest stayed, and the sounds of water splashing and their laughter carried up the beach, scaring away some of the seagulls.

Patrick spotted Greta walking alone down the shore, and he excused himself, jogging after her. She smiled when he caught up, and when he looked down, her shoes were missing – her toes covered in sand and slowly sinking into the beach with each step and laughing any time the water washed over them.

“Where are you going?” he asked, looking around. There didn’t appear to be much this way on the beach – there weren’t any more people, just the beach, stretching on.

“Just walking,” she said, tilting her head to look at him. “Want to join me?”

Patrick carried his shoes, not willing to leave them just sitting on the beach, even as Greta laughed at him. The sand was soft where they walked, even if the water was a bit cold. She stopped occasionally to pick up interesting-looking seashells, holding them up in what little light was left.

The sky was painted pink and orange, and soon it would be black, with the stars hanging overhead, and maybe Patrick could pretend he was somewhere else.

“Why aren’t you with Joe?” he asked after a few minutes, as the sun continued to get lower in the sky, many of the bright colors fading from the sky.

“He’s with Pete,” she said, giving an easy shrug. “They’ve been friends forever. You can’t compete with that sort of friendship. I wouldn’t want to.”

“Are you the most laidback person ever?”

“No,” she laughed, leaning her arm back and then throwing one of the sea shells back into the ocean, as far as she could reach. “But I’ve waited this long for him. I can wait a few more days.”

He wanted then to tell her what Joe had said, about staying behind and not returning to Ireland with Pete, or with Greta. It pulled at his insides and turned them over, and for a few minutes of silence, he was angry at Joe. At Pete, for not keeping his promises to Joe and disappearing, years ago, before they ever entered his life or Greta’s. Before everyone’s lives became so entangled that the strings were forever knotted now, no matter how much time he spent trying to pull them apart.

But the further they walked, the more the anger began to drain, until eventually it was just a dull ache by the time they’d turned around and reached the camp again. Joe jogged over to meet them, smiling politely at Patrick and then pulling Greta away.

He stood there for a moment, watching, unable to look away, as he wrapped a firm arm around her waist and leaned in to kiss her, holding her against him. In the moonlight, they almost looked other earthly, and her hair glowed soft, his fingers outlined as they threaded through her long locks.

When they parted, they were both smiling and talking quietly, whispering things too soft for Patrick to hear, and he finally took a few steps toward the bonfire, now glowing bright in the night.

Someone had bought supplies for S’mores, and the three Alex’s sat huddled together with Ian and Cash, holding out twigs they’d found and roasting their marshmallows. Johnson kept knocking his into Marshall’s (“Stop calling us all Alex,” Johnson had said earlier, and as it had been the first words any of them had heard him speak, Pete had nodded rather than fight), and DeLeon had stacked at least four on his stick.

Pete was sitting off to the side, stealing bites of mostly-melted chocolate and watching the fire. He glanced up when Patrick got near, tilting his head toward the empty space beside him.

“Hey,” he said as Patrick sat beside him, setting his red sneakers beside them. “Burnt marshmallow?” he asked, holding out a completely blackened and unfortunate looking marshmallow, but Patrick laughed and reached past him for the bag.

“I think I’ll take my own chances.”

“Smart man.”

The energy from earlier in the day had obviously worn off, and Pete’s lack of sleep appeared to have caught up to him. Patrick’s head was feeling dizzy from the sudden changes. “Are you okay?” he asked as he slid the marshmallow onto a twig, holding it out into the fire and watching the way the edges started to char.

Pete tugged his knees up to the chest, still watching the fire. “Sure,” he answered, and it was the kind of answer that made Patrick want to pull both their hair out.

He sighed, turning the marshmallow over in the fire. “What’s up with you lately? You’re hot one minute, and cold the next.” Patrick winced at his own analogy, leaning his head forward.

“You’re a bad pop song,” Pete observed, and there was the smallest of smiles.

“Doesn’t change the fact.”

Pete winced, hunching his shoulders more. “Thinking too much,” he said slowly, and this time Patrick was determined to wait him out. “I’m sorry,” he said, for the second time that day. “I was an ass to you.”

“It’s okay,” Patrick said, smiling a little at Pete. “You’re always an ass.”

For that, he got a loud, surprised laugh out of Pete. “Maybe,” he agreed, bumping their shoulders lightly, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it. “But I shouldn’t have stopped talking to you. I shouldn’t have even broken things off.”

Patrick closed his eyes, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him. He didn’t know what any of this meant. “Pete?” he asked quietly, but Pete just put his hand over his and pulled back, removing the now burnt marshmallow from the fire.

“Yours didn’t fare so great either,” he said, handing Patrick a fresh one. “I think Joe is hiding rum in his car.”

“Go get it, then,” Patrick said, clearing his throat.

Pete nodded and climbed to his feet, a bit shaky, but he disappeared back toward their hotel across the road, and by the time he returned with several different bottles of alcohol, Patrick felt okay enough to laugh and ask if he’d remembered plastic cups.

“We don’t need cups!” he laughed, and beside him, there was a roar of agreement from the Alex’s. Joe looked sour they’d found his stash, but Greta kissed a smile onto him.

“To friends,” Pete said, handing Patrick a bottle, and even though Patrick rarely drank, he raised his bottle in toast and they each took a swig, cringing and laughing after.

\---

He was maybe a little drunk by the time he got back to his room, and Pete followed, in silent agreement that he could spend the night again.

“Why don’t we have bonfires more?” Patrick asked, laughing as he sat on the edge of the bed and worked at getting his shoes off. The movement seemed somehow more difficult than usual now. “Bonfires are fun. I like all the fire.”

“You’re drunk,” Pete grinned. “You don’t get drunk.”

“Not drunk,” Patrick said, pausing. “Just kinda tipsy. Now you can’t take advantage of me now.”

Pete was hopping around, working at getting his own shoes off, but he stopped at that. “You were expecting me to?”

Patrick laughed. “I was joking, Wentz. Or was I?”

He said it with what he considered flair and attitude, but his still stomach dropped as soon as the words were out, and there was a beat when Pete was still smiling at him, too wide and teasing, along for the joke. But then he must have seen something shift in Patrick’s features because his face changed and his eyes went dark. “Patrick,” he whispered, and Patrick felt transported to the last time he’d seen that look on Pete’s face.

They’d been coming back from a late night at Scimeca’s, and Patrick had been tipsy – less than this, but enough to sing Sinatra and Nat King Cole around the house as he made tea and then took a shower. When he got out, Pete was waiting, still in the clothes Patrick had left him in, perched on the edge of the bed and listening to him. “I could listen to you sing all day for the rest of my life,” he’d whispered, staring Patrick down, and Patrick had blushed bright red at the time. A minute later, Pete was pulling him down roughly onto the bed, kissing him like he could devour the music that had spilled from his lips.

But that had been months ago, and this time, it was Patrick who pulled Pete closer, one hand resting on his thigh and the other on the back of his neck as Pete bent to meet him, their lips brushing. And for a moment, it was like nothing had changed – they were those two boys from the spring, smiling secretly against each other’s lips, like they’d been doing this their whole lives.

Pete reached out for his waist, his fingers spreading out along Patrick’s ribs, and for the first time, Patrick noticed how bad he was shaking. He tugged at his lower lip and kissed Pete again, trying to silently convey how okay this really was.

“I missed you,” Pete sighed, their foreheads knocking briefly, and Patrick couldn’t quit smiling.

“What?” he asked, pulling back, and then he was smiling too.

Patrick shook his head slowly. “I missed you too.”

He kissed Patrick again, harder, and scooted up the bed, leaning back and keeping one hand on his back, until they were both lying down. Pete slid down to rest his head against Patrick’s chest, listening to his heart hammering in his chest, as he traced his fingers across Patrick’s stomach until Patrick sucked in a sharp breath, fidgeting. “That tickles,” he whined, and Pete smiled up at him, moving the hand under the shirt instead, and then he was shifting enough to pull at it, moving the material over Patrick’s’ head.

“I love you,” he said, and Patrick blinked at him for a long moment before laughing, happy.

“I love you too,” he echoed, grasping at Pete’s hand until they were clasped, firmly, between them. “I think I always have.”

“I don’t say that a lot,” Pete said, dragging his teeth slowly over Patrick’s shoulder. “Not anymore.” When their eyes met, Pete looked so vulnerable and open for the first time since they’d met that Patrick could barely handle it.

“I know,” Patrick said, giving him a smile meant only for Pete, for this moment. “I don’t either.”

Pete looked relieved and when they kissed again, it was like oxygen, and Patrick never wanted it to end.

\---

When it was over, both of them tangled up in the sheets and each other, Pete’s head resting on Patrick’s bare chest as he traced patterns and shapes up Pete’s side, Patrick had never felt more relaxed in his life.

“This isn’t about anyone else,” Pete said, and it wasn’t desperate – he just wanted Patrick to know.

Patrick smiled into his hair, tilting their heads for a soft kiss. “I know,” he promised. “Just you and me.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, closing his eyes. “And maybe a little about the rum.”

Patrick laughed, and when Pete joined in, he could feel the movement vibrating through his skin, settling into his bones, and hoped it was permanent.

\---

6:30 AM wake up call came entirely too early again, and this time, there was no coffee waiting to be handed off to him. “Nnngh,” Pete groaned, and Patrick reciprocated.

They took a shower together, but they were both too bleary-eyed and in too much of a hurry to do more than wash away at the sand that was still sticking to everything and press tired, quiet kisses to each other’s shoulders as they washed shampoo out of their hair.

Patrick felt surprisingly more awake by the time they reached the boat, only 15 minutes late, and the way Joe was watching them shook any drowsiness from his body. “Hey,” he called down to them from the boat. “Late night?”

Beside him, Pete tensed, but only Patrick noticed from the way he felt Pete bunching up beside him. He stared up at Joe, meeting his gaze, until Joe finally smiled slowly, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re late, guys!” he said, hopping down onto the pier with them. “Andy has coffee!”

Pete and Patrick both left Joe standing alone and made a beeline for Andy.

\--

“For our last day on the boat,” Joe said, jumping on a crate of life vests for dramatic effect, “we’re going to be heading into deeper water than we have any other day. Then, this afternoon, you can do whatever you want! There’s scuba diving in the sanctuary, museums to be seen or whatever, or plenty of bars to drink your cares away in. That’s all.” He flashed a grin and jumped back down.

“We should have gone to Sea World,” Alex Marshall sighed, leaning over the edge, but Patrick narrowed his eyes at him while Pete snickered into his hand.

“Besides,” Joe said, coming to his defense and throwing an arm around Patrick’s shoulders, “at Sea World, there wouldn’t be any chance at all of pink dolphins.”

\--

“Guys!”

Pete’s voice carried all the way across the boat, from where Patrick was lost in a conversation with Alex DeLeon about the different types of dolphins in the area, and pulled them both out of their thoughts to stare at him.

He was bouncing excitedly, pointing out at the water – and when they followed his frantic hand movements, there was a whale, just going under the water.

“Is it her?” Patrick called back, and DeLeon began sprinting across the boat to the other side where Pete was standing. Patrick ran after him, clutching at his hat in the wind.

“It’s her,” Pete grinned, raising the binoculars. “We think there’s even two!”

“We can’t get too close,” Andy explained to Alex DeLeon, who was trying to lean out over the boat. “They’re around 100 feet long and weigh more than 200 tons.”

“That’s more than you,” Alex said, turning to Cash, who narrowed his eyes.

“Can we get a little closer?” Pete begged, and Andy nodded, giving a motion to Sisky.

As the boat began to inch closer, first one, then the other, of the two whales surfaced, water shooting out of their blowholes. It was hard to see just how long they really were, until one surfaced again, some ten feet away from the boat.

Cash and Alex jumped back in surprise, but Patrick and Pete were adapted enough to things jumping out of the water at them that they didn’t move. And then, under the water, Patrick could see most of the length of the body – its slick body sparkling with the water under the sunlight until it disappeared again, further under the water.

“Wow,” Pete whispered, grabbing his hand. “She’s beautiful.”

A little further out, she surfaced again, raising her head up to peer at them and then slowly diving down. Pete’s palm was sweaty in his own, and he was close enough that Patrick could hear his breath catching as her tail breached the water before slapping back down into the ocean.

“Wow,” Pete repeated.

\---

No one really wanted to leave the boat at lunchtime, so they didn’t head back to shore. There were sandwiches on board, and they all sat out in the sun, as a big group, and threw their scrap pieces of bread to seagulls hanging around.

“I love the ocean,” Greta said, though Patrick couldn’t really see her face. She had on sunglasses and a huge straw sun hat that covered most everything, but Joe didn’t seem to mind as it kept poking him in the head.

“Is that why you moved to Ireland?” Joe asked, handing her a piece of his bread crust and letting her toss it to the most pathetic looking seagull.

“Ireland’s not really sunny and warm most of the year. If I loved the ocean that much, I should have moved to Tahiti.”

Joe nodded thoughtfully. “So why did you leave Illinois?”

She shrugged, tilting her head back to look at the sun. “Seemed like an adventure at the time. Sometimes I miss it.”

Patrick watched them thoughtfully, until Pete was curling into his side and holding his hand.

\---

Patrick hadn’t been reading their itinerary that closely, so it came as a surprise when they exited the boat in the early evening and Joe said, “Alright, guys. You’ve got two hours, so get some food and pack, and meet us outside for the bus ride to San Diego.”

“We’re leaving?” he asked, turning to Pete. “I thought we’d be going in the morning...”

Pete shrugged helplessly, putting his hands in his pockets like he always did when he was feeling awkward or didn’t quite know what to say. “It’s a seven hour ride. We thought, a month ago, this might be easier on everyone. I kind of forgot.”

Patrick felt sick to his stomach.

“Hey,” Joe said, waving to get their attention and then appearing in front of the, pulling Greta along with him. “We should all get dinner. And talk.”

Pete looked at Patrick, like he wanted to protest, but Patrick was pretty sure he knew what this was about. “That sounds great, Joe,” he said, and kissed Pete’s cheek when he looked a little offended.

They wound up in a touristy, Hawaiian-themed place, with tikis out front and wooden bamboo window shades. They took a booth in the back, with Pete sitting across from Joe, and it struck Patrick that they’d probably done this thousands of times, just like this – but it was all different now.

He buried his head in the menu.

No one really spoke much during dinner, too lost in their own thoughts. Pete held Patrick’s hand under the table and only picked at his dinner, but Greta tried to lighten the mood with stories of the summer she tried to make a living singing.

“We need to talk about something,” Joe said when the waitress had taken their plates, barely touched.

“Sounds serious,” Pete said, watching Joe curiously, and then suspiciously. “Did you lose our plane tickets?”

“No,” Joe said, and when Pete continued to stare him down, he pulled three tickets out of the envelope of travel documents he’d been carrying around constantly. “See? All there.”

Pete picked them up to count them while Joe sighed. “Pete, focus.”

Slowly, he lowered the tickets.

“One of these,” Joe said, carefully pulling one out of Pete’s loose grasp, “won’t be used.”

Pete stared back, blankly, and Patrick wanted to reach for Pete’s hand again, but he kept still, waiting.

“I got a job offer,” Joe continued, smiling sadly and shrugging. “Back home, in Chicago, at the aquarium. And… I think I’m going to take it.”

He was watching Pete, they all were, but Pete just leaned back, quiet.

“Say something,” Joe whispered. “Please.”

“For good?” His tone was even, his eyes giving away nothing. Patrick wished he knew what Pete was thinking, but it was Joe who looked desperate for some sort of a sign.

“I don’t know,” Joe said, shrugging helplessly. “I want to try this, for me. Maybe finish up my degree and then figure out where my life is going from here. I’m not running away from you, I just need this.”

“You know we’re not actually dating anymore, right?”

Joe winced, but nodded, and reached out for Pete’s hands to clasp them. It felt wrong, then, to be sitting in on this conversation. “Doesn’t mean I won’t always love you. Or that I regret anything.” He paused at Pete’s skeptical look, and repeated, firmer, “Anything, Pete.”

“You shouldn’t have sat over there,” Pete said, pulling his hands back and crossing them. “I can’t hug you in congratulations.”

A slow smile started to spread across both their faces, and then Pete was climbing out of their side of the booth and moving to Joe’s, pulling him into a tight hug. “That’s fucking awesome, Joe. I’m so proud.”

Patrick could see Joe closing his eyes in relief, and Patrick and Greta’s eyes met across the table. He’d almost forgotten she hadn’t known about any of this either.

“Maybe I should go,” she said slowly, reaching for her purse.

“No!” Joe turned around, letting Pete slide back into his spot beside Patrick, and turned to hug Greta tightly. “I know it’s a lot right now, but if you ever want to come visit, or come back home to Illinois…”

“Then what?” She looked ready to cry, until he leaned in and kissed her, and Patrick couldn’t look away. Something about them just clicked and fit together in his mind, like two missing pieces of an even bigger puzzle. He could see her struggling against Joe for a minute before she finally settled against him.

“I have been missing home,” she said quietly, and he grinned so wide Patrick was surprised it didn’t hurt.

Pete sank slowly into his seat. “So,” he said, picking up one of the three tickets laying on the table, “guess it’s a party of one for the flight back home.” He picked up another ticket, turning it over in his hands before turning to face Patrick. “Unless…”

Patrick stared back.

“I know I fucked up before.”

“I have school,” Patrick said, almost choking on the words.

“You have a job in Ireland. And more, if you want it.”

He looked up to Joe for advice, but Joe was just watching him expectantly. He hadn’t thought about any of this. Two days ago, he and Pete had barely even been on speaking terms. He couldn’t just pack up his life and move for someone the way Joe had, he wasn’t that kind of a person, he wasn’t willing to leave all of his friends behind for something that wasn’t a guarantee, even if he loved Pete. He…

“Okay,” he said.

Pete’s eyes got wide and he leaned closer, disbelieving. “Really?”

Patrick was practically shaking in the seat as Pete grasped his hands, pressing their foreheads together and trying to block out the rest of the world. “You don’t have to,” Pete said quietly. “But I want you to. God, I want you to.”

Patrick wasn’t the kind of person to make rash decisions. Except, maybe he was, because he was nodding slowly and leaning closer to seal the promise with a kiss. “I love you,” he whispered, and Pete gripped him so tightly Patrick thought there might be bruises in the morning. “I want to try.”

“I love you too,” Pete said, and then they were all laughing. It was maybe the happiest Patrick had ever felt.

\---

“Yes, thank you, goodbye now. We’ll call,” Ryan said, giving Gabe a firm push out the door.

“Bring lemonade!” Brendon called from the porch, and Ryan rolled his eyes, but went to pour two fresh glasses from the pitcher in the kitchen before joining Brendon on the porch.

Brendon was already lounging in the freshly hung up hammock, grinning tiredly at Ryan.

“You,” Ryan announced, setting the two glasses on the ground, “are a traitor.” He climbed into the hammock with him, eyeing the hooks warily as it made precarious noises and creaks, swaying a bit unsteadily, but ultimately, it held.

“Am not,” Brendon murmured, pressing kisses to the back of his neck. “I’m good for you.”

“You’re going to make me fat and lazy,” Ryan sighed, sipping his lemonade and wishing he’d brought his sunglasses. Or a good book. Oh, this hammock was going to make for the best summer of his life.

“Make?” Brendon sounded indignant. “You chose this lifestyle.”

Ryan found himself smiling, closing his eyes and shrugging as best as he could given their position. Maybe he had.

“Besides,” Brendon continued, kissing down his arm, and Ryan really didn’t understand how he was so agile in such a confined space. “I’m right, almost all the time.”

“If you tip us over, there will be hell to pay,” Ryan warned, but Brendon just chuckled against his arm, his breath tickling at Ryan’s skin. “And you are not always right. When are you right?”

“I told you I’d make you love me,” Brendon countered.

“To be fair, you also said you’d make Spencer love you.”

Brendon nipped at his skin and Ryan laughed quietly, running his fingers slowly through his hair.

“I’m still working on that one. But one out of two isn’t bad, right?”

“Not at all,” Ryan said, and turned just enough that they could kiss.

Definitely going to be one of the best summers of his life.

\---

“This isn’t moving in,” Jon protested, crossing his arms. Spencer frowned and set the third box on the floor, looking around.

“Did you change your mind or something?” Surely not, they’d spoken on the phone even that morning, and Jon had been so excited for Spencer to bring his things from Ryan’s to Jon’s place, now that he was done catching up with his best friend.

Jon narrowed his eyes a little and pointed at the three boxes. “That cannot be all of your stuff. Where’s the rest?”

“That’s shoes, that’s shirts and clothes, that’s photos and chocolate. The chocolate is really Brendon’s, though,” Spencer counted off, looking at Jon, concerned. “What else is there?”

“Furniture?” Jon asked, moving to open one of the boxes. “Towels? Kitchen utensils?”

“You have all of that,” Spencer said, hopping onto Jon’s oversized sofa and smiling at him in what he hoped was a suggestive way.

“Don’t you want to bring your own stuff, though?” Jon looked so confused it almost hurt, but Spencer couldn’t help but laugh, reaching for his hand.

“No, Jon.”

“Why not?” He allowed himself to be pulled onto the sofa, even for Spencer to climb into his lap.

Spencer huffed, wrapping an arm firmly around Jon and sliding the other under his shirt. “Because,” he said slowly, because apparently Jon needed this to be explained slowly, “we’re moving in. Everything is ours now. If we don’t have something, _we_ will get it, and it will be ours.”

“Oh.” Jon laughed, leaning his head back. “That actually makes sense.”

“Jon.” Spencer was kissing his jawline, smiling against his skin. “Do you need another hint here?”

This time, Jon didn’t, and he leaned up to kiss Spencer, one hand settling comfortably at his waist.

\---

“Welcome aboard the SS Voyager,” Patrick announced, smiling brightly at the new tourists for the morning. He shook their hands before motioning them on board, watching as Pete handed everyone a life jacket.

“Wear these at all times,” Patrick explained before pointing out to Roaring Water Bay, stretched out behind them. “If you see someone fall in, point, don’t jump in to try and rescue them. Just stand and point at where they fell, hopefully we’ll see you and go rescue them.”

Some of the passengers were exchanging worried glances, but Patrick never let the smile fall off his face. He could see Pete cackling into his hand behind them.

Patrick motioned for the guests to follow him into the wheelhouse before saying, “If I fall over and die or something, you can tell our Captain. If our Captain falls over and dies too – ”

“Do we stand and point at you?” Pete asked from the back, and Patrick laughed, trying to ignore that wicked smile that always seemed to get him into trouble.

“Not quite,” he said, tapping a bright red button on the ceiling. “This will call for help.”

“But,” Pete said, stepping up to the wheel and turning on the engine, “if anything happens, we’ll probably all drown anyway.”

“True,” Patrick agreed. “Back on deck and I’ll point out where Bruce Willis used to summer.”

The passengers crowded through the door to the deck, but Pete reached for Patrick, keeping him there by the back of his shirt. “I was thinking we could go to Cork tonight,” he murmured, kissing Patrick’s neck.

Patrick laughed, squirming out of his grasp easily enough. “And here I was thinking we’d just watch Pretty Woman with Hemmy and make out through half of it.”

Pete made a face. “You want to make out with our dog?”

Patrick was laughing again, louder, especially when Pete slapped his ass and motioned for him to go back on deck. “Back to it, first mate.”

“Pete,” Patrick whined, leaning over to give him one last, quick kiss. “We aren’t pirates, you know.”


End file.
